DotMoms

DotMoms Daily: Sibling IQ debate, SAT prep and more

Photo: Gary Kazanjian, AP/MSNBC

In family-related news now:
> Sperm donor siblings find family ties (CBS)
> Study on I.Q. prompts debate on family dynamics  (NYTimes)
> Prepare for the SAT Test and play with your iPod? (NYTimes)
> Addiction experts say video games not an addiction (ABC)
> More kids turning to personal fitness trainers (AP/MSNBC)
> Great opening lines to hook young readers (NPR)

DotMoms Daily: Oldest smartest, gaming school, and more

Photo: Newscom, ABC

In family-related news now:
> Study: Firstborns have higher IQs  (New York Times)
> Kindergarten Valedictorians (Newsweek/MSNBC)
> Thomas the Tank Engine recall angers parents (NPR)
> Video-game addiction a new diagnosis? (AP/ABC)
> Foundation spends $1.1 million to create new gaming middle-high school
> Thousands of failing schools face major overhaul (AP/CNN)

The joys of parenting a newborn

By Amy M.

As most people who read DotMoms know, parenting a newborn is, well, an experience. My daughter, Lauren, was born May 10. She joins her brother, Alex, who will be 5 in September. In the few minutes I can catch while the princess is content in her bouncer, I want to share some of the highlights (in the loosest sense of the word) of our first few weeks home with our adorable daughter and equally adorable but sometimes-jealous son.

The first night home from the hospital, the sleeping arrangements featured Lauren in the co-sleeper beside our bed, and the rest of us (mom, dad, Alex AND dog) in our king-size bed. The second night, Lauren joined us there (we have a special co-sleeping positioner to make sure she stays safe in our bed). Around the third or fourth night, after my parents brought over a blow-up mattress, I ended up spending part of the night on that ridiculous thing with Alex while Brian and the dog slept in the big bed and Lauren slept in the co-sleeper beside the bed.

I have written many times about Alex sharing a bed with us. Now he's just sharing a room -- I guess that's a start.

During the night I slept (or tried to sleep) on the blow-up mattress, I almost burst into tears but instead realized the whole situation was sort of humorous. The important thing was that I was actually managing to get some sleep with a newborn in the house!

I have also had some humorous breastfeeding experiences. For better or for worse, Lauren eats like a champ. She was actually above her birth weight by her weight check appointment, just four days after she was born. When she's awake, she wants to eat every hour. So when Alex, my mom and I decided to go get some ice cream, I knew there was a chance I would need to feed her while we were out, even though she had a full tummy and was due for a long nap. However, I forgot my nursing cover, or "Hooter Hider" (yes, that's what the company calls them). I also momentarily forgot that Alex picks up on just about anything I say, so when I said I forgot my Hooter Hider, he was instantly intrigued. I'm just waiting for his teachers to tell me Alex has been talking about hooters at school.

Later that afternoon, after I was able to steal a whopping 10 minutes in the grocery store before Lauren needed (or wanted) to eat (she was in the car with my mom and Alex), I came out and offered Alex a special ice cream bar that was supposed to be patterned like a cow. My mom jokingly said to Lauren, "This is what a cow looks like, and your mommy is a cow." Alex, of course, thought that was hilarious and began repeating, "My mommy is a cow." I think I may have to tell his teachers where he picked up these things.

Not a bad first few weeks home with a newborn. I even got to write this post in one sitting -- thank goodness for the bouncy seat!

Amy M. lives in Pennsylvania with her son and her husband. She works full time as a writer/editor for a large university.

DotMoms Daily: Gender selection, what worries us most, and more

Photo: Disc/ABC.com

New now:
> Could gender detection lead to gender selection? (ABC)
> Open (secret): How adoption really works (The Washington Post)
> Soothing the screams from childhood vaccines (AP/MSNBC)
> Siblings of autistic kids also at risk (WebMD/CBS)
> Poll: Child smoking worries adults most (WebMD/CBS)
> Younger girls binge drinking more (CBS)
> Too 'Kewl' for school: Making science click (NPR)
> Cheerleading gains popularity around the world (Newsweek/MSNBC)

Post-pregnancy re-entry

By Sarah Rachel Engelman

You have probably seen me: hobbling down the street with a newborn tied to my chest, a ratty ponytail holding the unwashed hair from my face, spit-up on both shoulders and a frustrated, needy toddler at the end of one arm. I am a newly postpartum woman just venturing into the outside world.

When my first daughter was born, although the labor and delivery were easy enough, the physical and emotional recovery turned me into a shut-in for almost two months. Then, when I did leave the house I brought along my trusty donut to sit on (stitches, ouch!). I leaked milk, had mastitis and was generally freaking out all the time (but, oddly enough, people remarked what a calm, serene mom I was already; I think I was catatonic). This time around has been very different.

The labor and delivery were even easier and though I had breastfeeding issues again, they resolved themselves quickly. My baby daughter is either much mellower or my husband and I are. Either way, the baby aspect is going quite well. BUT. Now there is an almost 3-year-old to contend with.

Of course, my oldest daughter, Lilith, is even needier and more sensitive now that her little sister, Adina, is on the scene. She has begun climbing into bed with me in the middle of the night. Sometimes she says she is having nightmares and sometimes she just says she needs me. Whenever I nurse the baby she tells me she needs to be held, too. All of this is to be expected, and I did expect it. Still, living it is difficult. It adds to my exhaustion and many days are spent in frustration.

A colder than usual winter has kept us inside lately. It has been hard for Lilith to expend her seemingly boundless physical energy. That plus the fact that, I will be honest, taking the two of them out together, just the three of us, makes me nervous. So, my first couple of trips to the grocery store have been either alone or with just one of them. We three girls have managed many nice walks around the block and a couple trips to the park without incident. There, at the park, Lilith is occupied with swings and slides and sand and is content. I can hover nearby with the baby safely tied to my chest, sitting on a bench to nurse as needed. But, the grocery store, or any such place, fills me with a teeny bit of dread.

What if Lilith takes off? She has been less obedient in public lately, testing her limits, seeing how responsive we are to her. Will I be able to be on top of her and the baby and the groceries and get us home in one piece? I know it is inevitable that I will have to make this trip but I am not ready yet for the final stages of re-entry!

Adina's turning two months old (by the time I finish writing this, she will probably be graduating from high school, you know how it goes) and she has a pediatrician appointment. I will be taking Lilith. It will be just the three of us. I have images of Lilith running away from me, heading down the hospital corridors as I helplessly watch and am stuck holding a squirming naked infant on the paper-covered surface of the examining table.

Maybe I am not giving either of us enough credit. After all, she is a good kid, and I think I am a good mom. I am sure the doctor's appointment will go well, with Lilith quietly coloring in a chair while we tend to Adina. Who knows, maybe it will go so well we'll hit the grocery store on the way home.

And, if you see me there (you'll recognize me; blurry eyed, nervous, yet blissfully happy), please say hello or smile my way. It is not easy for a postpartum mom upon re-entry.

Sarah Rachel Egelman is a community college instructor and freelance book reviewer who lives in New Mexico with her family. 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her wear dowdy clothes

By Mindy

A friend recently asked a provocative question: What is your suggestion for parents who struggle with sticking to their personal beliefs while raising a child who is drawn, by outside forces, to a different belief? I'm really trying to find out how other parents handle situations where their decisions -- big and small -- might negatively impact their kids' social life.

Good one.

As my children are still too young to have put me in the position of dealing with these things, I answered freely and confidently.

Since you'll never convince them that it isn't fun, attractive, or compelling, all you can do is inform them of their choices and how those choices might pan out. Try to convince or dictate, and it says more to them about you. Lay out the facts (or rules), and future behavior says more about them. Think of it as more of a consiglieri role than a director role.

For instance, tell your daughter that she is free to dress how she likes. However, dressing in trendy, body-revealing clothes will have the following results:

1. People will notice her body, not her.
2. Boys will make assumptions. Girls will assign a reputation, earned or not.
3. Competition is everywhere and with everyone; style competition in a high school environment can only escalate, and there is no final prize. Compete intellectually instead; it's a stealthy move. You won't remember half their names in 10 years, and you haven't even met your best friends yet. People live a long time.
4. Trendy clothes go out of style in a flash, so all fad items will be purchased by the child. They are not good investments for the parents.
5. Investigate together the school's dress code. You can be at least as strict as the school. If wearing something there gets a detention, it gets similar action at home.

Emphasize that these are not punishments designed to make life miserable; rather, they are the rules and social norms, and so long as the entire family has been informed, any further breaking of the rules and resulting consequences is solely of the child's choosing.

Violent games? Can't avoid them, so set limits. Same as above: you'll throw them off by saying they are free to make their own choices, but bring them back by assuring them that freedom to choose doesn't come with immunity for those choices.

1. Delay having video games in the home as long as possible. I went nine years, not because I denied them, but because I never mentioned them or purchased them. Children will discover them at others' homes and at school, and then you can talk about what the rules are there and what they will be at home.
2. None in the morning when they are getting ready for school -- they're distracting and they listen less when re-enacting what they've learned. If the children are more violent with each other, there are more consequences; tolerance doesn't go up in proportion to the video game rating.
3. Compare it to junk food. Tell them that it's not necessarily bad for them, but it does take up space better used by healthier stuff their bodies need.
4. Set expectations in the house: they have chores, homework and whatever else. If everything else is done, they are free to do what they like in the time they have carved out by being more efficient with the rest. It cannot take away from other responsibilities.
5. As with trendy clothing, video games are optional and transient, so the child will pay for them either with gift money or money earned doing chores or tasks. They earn the money, and then choose how to spend it. Let the money be the buffer, and the video games do not come from you, and whatever earned the money has nothing to do with whatever the money buys. Make it clear that if they earned it, it is theirs, and so long as it's not dangerous or illegal they are free to spend it and enjoy or repent according to choices made with full knowledge of the rewards and consequences.

I'll get back to you when I've made this work in my own home.

Mindy is a divorced mother who lives in the Bay Area with her three children.

The true portrait of a family

By Amber

My 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Hurricane Hadley, is the worst picture taker ever. This is not an exaggeration. The only reason I occasionally have quasi-cute pictures of her is because 1) I have a digital camera and take a oodles shots in hopes I can get just one keeper and 2) I bribe, threaten and beg her to "Please, just smile once for Mommy or I will personally remove Dora the Explorer from this earth." Gotta strike 'em where it hurts.

My husband Jamie has always been completely against getting professional pictures taken. So my act of rebellion during his recent business trip was to drag the kids into Kiddie Kandids and submit myself to a nervous breakdown.

We went early, before the store opened, and there was already a line. As I waited, my five-month-old, Bode, chose that small window of eternity to do his irregular poop. You know: the one that has been backed up for a week and is like Mount St. Helen's every time he erupts. Good thing the pictures were full-frontals; there's something kinda unappealing about a lovely brown stain all the way up his back.

The actual photo session was frustrating because we couldn't get the kids positioned correctly and our inept photographer wanted The Hurricane to hold Bode. Because she obviously doesn't value his life as much as I do.

"You mean to tell me out of your gazillion studios across the country that you don't have anything to prop him up?" I asked.

"Not for the ones who can't sit up yet," she said accusingly.

Because it's obviously lazy Bode's fault he's still a baby and can't do sit on his own yet.

It went downhill from there as Hadley defied our efforts to lure anything but scowls, escape attempts and canned smiles. Bode, on the other hand, did marvelously. As we reviewed the photos at the end, I weighed my options.

"Can we just crop her out?"
"You want to cut your daughter out of the picture?"
"Don't you think she deserves it? He was at least making an effort to smile."

The photographer analyzed me, trying to figure out if I was just kidding. I mostly wasn't.

In the end, we ended up choosing the only halfway decent one of Hadley, but unfortunately one of the few where Bode wasn't smiling. I later regretted this decision and wish I had chosen one of his many cute ones with her canned smile.

Just to truly memorialize the occasion, of course.

Amber is a former adventure-travel writer turned adventurous unraveling mother to two-year-old Hurricane Hadley and baby Bode.

Double the pleasure, become more undone

By Amber

I know women have been giving birth to multiple children for a long time. Well, for at least 34 years when I made my unabashed entrance into this world as child No. 2. How my dear mother survived it all and even chose to have a third is often beyond me.

My transition from one to two children has been a bit rocky, though I am happy to report that 2-year-old Hurricane Hadley's tantrums have abated.

Of course, life had to hit rock bottom before it got better and everything recently bottomed out. Hadley was throwing tantrums over everything we did, said or even thought. Yes, the kid is even a mind reader.

After she spent the majority of her day recently in timeout, my husband and I decided we needed an intervention. Obviously, discipline wasn't working so we tried an approach you'll find only in "Amber's Guide to Toddler Tantrums": we made a rare appearance at McDonald's and stuffed her with sugar, trans fats and Playland. Don't judge me until you try it because she returned to her delightful self after that hedonistic evening.

As for her brother Bode, he's easygoing and even-tempered; my testament to just how colicky and difficult Haddie really was as a baby. I can finally see why people enjoy newborns.

I still remember when my friends Dave and Rebecca came to stay with us last summer. Their daughter, Sienna, was only a few months old and I could have sworn she was the Baby Jesus Incarnate. She behaved perfectly: she slept like a dream, never cried and would entertain herself for long periods of time. Because there was nothing more fascinating than gazing at the air in front of her. They would also fight over her:

"No, Dave, it's my turn to hold Sienna."
"Becca, you've had her for too long. It's my turn."

Don't get me wrong. We loved the Hurricane and even fought over her. But our arguments were more along the lines of:

"No, Jamie. I've had her all day. Take the child NOW."
"No way. I've filled my quota for the rest of my life."

Bottom line, Jamie and I looked at our friends like they were some disgusting, lovesick couple guilty of unadulterated PDAs. Oh wait. That used to be us before we had The Hurricane. Coincidentally, it was Dave who christened her with that nickname. I'm hoping they give birth to a tornado the next time around. It's only fair, right?

Jamie and I tried to comfort ourselves by believing Sienna was a boring little slug. I mean, she just laid there and never made a peep; at least Hadley had some spunk, right?

However since having my own slug, I have deemed it a beautiful thing. And if I could be assured I'd give birth to a miniature mollusk and not another natural disaster, maybe -- just maybe -- I'd go for No. 3.

Amber is a former adventure-travel writer turned adventurous unraveling mother to two-year-old Hurricane Hadley and baby Bode.

Big brother/little sister

By Rachel

I always wanted a big brother. Someone who would be a defender and protector. Someone who could explain the mysterious world of boys to me. Someone who could bring cute friends over to our house on Saturday afternoons.

I had a little sister. She didn’t like to play board games. We fought over hair clips, paper dolls and music on the car radio. In the midst of some of our fiercest battles, my mother would come in, forcibly separate us and say, “You don’t know it now, but you two will be best friends some day.” We’d look at each other with utter disgust, each of us crinkling our nose and pointing “Her?”

My 3-year-old daughter put her arm around my neck last night. She wore a soft green sundress, deemed comfy enough to serve as pajamas. She leaned toward my ear and said, “Sometimes my brother likes me and sometimes he doesn’t. You know how I know it?”

I shook my head. “How do you know?”

“He told it to me.”

I reached out to touch her cheek, wanting to put the best spin possible on it, I said. “Well, we all like to be by ourselves sometimes, right?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I like him all the time.”

And she does.

When she got pink eye earlier in the year, she only wanted her brother to hold her hand while I put the drops in her eyes. He dragged his feet over to the couch, rolling his eyes as she squeezed his fingers together.

When he got pink eye the following week (maybe from holding her hand all those days), she stood next to him while I put his drops in, reaching for his hand. He shook her hand off, saying, “I don’t need you.”

Sometimes I want to reprimand him, saying “Tell your sister you like her all the time.” But they have their own unique interaction and as much as I want to make it smooth, equal and utterly requited at all times. It might not be.

I leaned in toward my daughter’s ear and whispered, “I have a secret for you. Want to hear it?”

She nodded, smiling and then rolled backward, kicking her legs up in the air. “Someday, you and your brother will be best friends.”

“I know that, silly.”

Quinlan yelled from the other room, “Dorothea come quick. Look, there’s a big hose going into the subway!”

She climbed up into the windowsill next to him and they both looked down at a square white truck with “Department of Sanitation” written on the side. A thick black hose trailed from the truck all the way down the subway stairs.

“Maybe somebody threw up,” she suggested.

“Yeah or maybe somebody pooped right on the tracks,” he added. She placed a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. She laughed, covering her mouth with one hand. He joined her, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.

I picked up the telephone to call my little sister and tell her about it.

Rachel Iverson lives in New York City with her family. She works as a writer and an editor and she leads workshops for mothers.

Lights! Camera! Aaaand Action!

By Amy H.

“What do we do now, Mommy?” my second-born asks me impatiently from the floor of her bedroom.

“Mommy, Mommy,” she demands more emphatically this time, “Mommy, what do we do now?”

All the while I sit dumbstruck on a butterfly throw rug in a kind of fantasy-nightmare daze.

It seems surreal that a mere twenty-minutes earlier I had been standing in a noisy kindergarten classroom with my first-born, a 40-pound fledgling armed only with a Yu-gi-oh backpack and Power Rangers lunch box to shield him from dangers both real and imagined by his neurotic mother. On the trip home I was struck by the many critical life-lessons that I had failed to teach him in our five years together, and I wondered what we had done with all that time.

Now with my 2-year-old innocently asking me, “What do we do now, Mommy?” it feels like a profound question worthy of a months contemplation…or at least a blog post.

After years of preproduction, when Javi was born filming began on the set of “Our Family Movie,” and for the most part, for better and for worse, Javi has been in the directors chair. Sure my co-producer and I made the big decisions about securing financing for this low-budget indie flick, choosing locations for shooting and casting of supporting actors, but Javi basically called the shots, and shouted out “Action” and “It’s a wrap!” at his discretion.

When Isa came along three years later there was no hiatus; the camera kept right on rolling, and Isa found her place in the spotlight. She was comfortable being in the starring role but also relied on her big brother director for inspiration. And that brings us to the dramatic scene in her bedroom where there is foreshadowing of exciting new relationship developments between the star and the film’s producers and a much anticipated movie sequel in which the lead actress steps behind the camera.

Press Release: We, the producers of “Our Family Movie,” have nothing but the utmost confidence that Ms. Isa will figure out exactly what we do now when she makes her directorial debut with “Just Mommy and Me,” coming soon to a theater near you!

Amy H. is a thirty-something SAHM and part-time psychology professor living in the deep South with her husband and two children.