Archives for May 2006

I suppose there might be people asking themselves, “Why is this blog called “Diapers and Music”, when she isn’t writing about diapers, or music?”. Well, the answer is a little complicated. I never intended to keep this blog. I opened a blogger account just to show my husband, how easy it is. He was in the process of getting his own website and I thought he needed something to make people return. Like a blog. And I thought it might be fun to have one myself, since I enjoy reading blogs so much.

At the time that I opened up my blog, diapers were foremost in my mind. Not because there were loads and loads of them, like diapering three kids under the age of four, but because my son wanted to get rid of them. A year ago he decided to get diaper-free. Hurray, you’d say. But not if you’re the one to wash dozens of soggy pants and underpants and socks and sometimes whole outfits. Every day. Okay, not every day, because we don’t have that much outfits. But it became real stressful. Is he gonna pee? Does he need to go potty? Or not? Do I force him? Am I allowed to restrict his strive for independence? Only when there’s only one dry pair of pants left? Is it okay to hang up soggy pants and underwear to dry and then let him wear it again? How long can a two-year-old last without going potty? (Answer: longer that you think, but not long enough to avoid the soggy pants)

Sometime around July I decided to relax. I said to myself, this is his concern. His responsibility. And I made a deal with him that he had to put on diapers when there was only one pair of pants left. This went very well, especially since it became warm enough to let him roam the garden butt-naked. Then we had little, ahem, turds on the lawn. I thought, he’d never get it. But then he got it more often than not. With the pee. Poop was another matter. And I heartily dislike poopy pants. You know, a poopy cloth diaper is much easier to treat than a poopy jeans. Believe me.

Then I promised him a sticker for every poop that got into the potty, and voilà! everything went fine. Tada!

I’m just thinking about this whole thing, because there’s a new diaper-related problem. I even wrote an e-mail to Moxie about it. And she answered! (My question is the second one.) So there might be diaper-free times ahead. Well, there sure will be. Only very few kids go off to college still wearing diapers at night.

But what to do with the blog? Should I change the title? Or is it okay to leave the diapers in it as a pointer that this is a “mommyblog”? And then go on posting little essays on cloth diapers from time to time?

Feel free to leave comments.

I’m feeling ambivalent towards Mother’s Day. That’s nothing unusual for me, ambivalence seems to be built in. Like all children I made little mother’s day gifts in kindergarten and school, tried to make breakfast in bed for my mother, and to be real thankful for all that she has done for me. Still having troubles with thankfulness, ‘though. Secretly I always thought I’d do the same if I were in her place, and I never felt that she was especially self-sacrificing.

The ambivalence should have vanished when I became a feminist at age twelve and decided to stop celebrating mother’s day, because it’s reactionary, a florist’s chain invention, and because Hitler made it popular in Germany. Since then I have been giving my mother a “I think mother’s day is reactionary and commercial, but my best wishes anyway”-speech for mother’s day. This simplifies the question of gifts enormously.

A lot of women say that they only appreciate what their mothers did for them, when they have children of their own. I can only say that I’d do the same for my child as my mother did for me. Maybe more. In contrast to my mother I have the advantage of being able to continue working for pay and of having a husband who does a lot for his child too. (The more reason to think about this year’s father’s day, a day that I thought to be complete nonsense.)

What’s really strange about this whole mother’day thing is, that it’s really, really important to me that my son’s giving me something. The first sign was my disappointment, when my husband didn’t give me flowers for my first mother’s day. Not that I’m thinking he should give me flowers on mother’s day, since I’m not his mother, but acting for our son… So I bought myself flowers. And was quite embarassed about feeling offended. The next mother’s day we went to a florist together to buy flowers for my mother-in-law, and I told them to pack a rose for me, too. On our way home we debated my ambivalent feelings.

Since then it’s going better, the child’s in kindergarten and has been in playgroup before. In playgroup they made littler cardboard-flowers, and the children got greeting cards with little poems. When I read mine, I cried! My husband went to get his mother’s flowers without me and when he came back, he sent me the little one with a flower pot. (Soooo cuuute!) This year I got my present for mother’s day on Friday (The child could’nt wait.) He made it all himself. With an almost recognisable dandelion. I’m so proud. The card says that he loves the most about his mom: going for walks. This is what you get, when your child has to participate in your walking workout routine.

Today I phoned my mother because of mother’s day. Before I got to wish her the best, she wished me a nice mother’s day. Um. Sometimes I think I should buy her flowers.

There is one thing I’m understanding better, since being a mother myself. Now and then my mother tells the story of my birth. It was quite dramatic, I was six weeks early, my mother was at home all alone, without a telephone, and didn’t know what happened. I was born on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. Then I was immediately transferred to another hospital. This took place at the end of the sixties. Parents were not allowed in the baby’s ward. No touching, nothing. How hard it must have been for my mother to see her little premature baby only through a window, I only understood, when, 35 years later, I couldn’t sleep in the hospital, because I had allowed the nurses to take my baby away for the night. And it wasn’t for a few hours for her, but for a few weeks.

It was this, she had meant when she said, “It’s completely different when it’s your own children.” She meant this overwhelmingly big feeling, love that’s bigger than your own life. And it’s quite inapprehensible to feel it for somebody, but it’s totally inapprehensible that somebody feels it for you. But it’s certainly true.

I don’t know whether you have noticed it too – people don’t talk to babies or toddlers. Well, most don’t, but I do. I was reminded of this just yesterday, at a family get-together. The toddler (15 months old) wanted to have cookies. The cookies were standing right in front of him. His mother said “No cookies!” to the adult holding the toddler. (She’s one of those “no sugar nor white flour will touch the lips of my baby”-mothers.) But of course, the toddler wanted them. Desperately, being really angry. I looked at him and said sternly, “You know what, toddler, you can scream as much as you want, but you won’t be getting any more cookies. Sorry, but your mom said no.” He immediately stopped screaming and looked at me like “What did just happen?”, and I realized that nobody had talked to him as if he were a real person for the whole day. He was yanked away, things were put out of reach, people were talking about him, but he was almost never addressed, and nobody explained anything to him.

Apart from my mother and me. This is not a single occurrance, I observe it all the time. A friend of mine (not a very close friend) and her fifteen month old were at our place. The toddler was with me, the mother at the other end of the garden. Toddler says, “Mamamamamamamam.” I said, “He’s saying “Mama.” Mother says, “Oh no, he also says that when he’s hungry.” So what? He’s fifteen months old. Mother, food, being hungry, being tired, that’s all connected for him. But these parents are giving their children the message that the children are stupid. That their wishes and feelings don’t count.

That makes me real furious. Okay, sometimes I felt like a fool, blabbering away with my baby. We’re out, he’s in the stroller, and saying “Da!” and pointing. And me, “Yes, that’s a nice flower.” Sometimes I’d imitate his sounds just for the fun of it. And because I respect his urge to communicate. Now that my son is three, he’s an amazing talker. Big vocabulary, very articulate, quite good grammar. I don’t know whether this is because of all the talking, but I didn’t do it to boost my child’s language skills. I did it because it seems natural to me, and because I see children as real persons.

I believe that even babies understand more than they can express. What Moxie writes on babies and sign language makes perfect sense to me. I think that it’s hurtful for a person (even one that’s only a couple of weeks old) to tell her (not directly, of course) “You’re stupid. I’ll only talk to you, when you’re all grown up. Try to point out something to me, I won’t be listening anyway.”

I have been accused of trying to turn my son into an “anti-social super-brain”. By a person who thinks that you can be too intelligent. I don’t think that one can be “too” intelligent. I believe, intelligence can be boosted only so far. But it can be dampened. As can be the urge to communicate. (By the way, the only thing I do to “boost” my son is listen to him, when he talks, and answer his questions as good as I can. I’m not the one with the flash cards or anything.)

But talking to your baby or toddler seems to be very odd behavior. Imagine my delight when I went to a party recently and almost all the parents there talked to their babies. Like “I know, you’re hungry right now, you’ll be getting your bottle soon. See, the water is already boiling.”

I don’t know, why I’m spending so much time around people who make me feel really weird.

Oh, they’re family.