Third Culture Kid(s)

I haven’t really updated on the kids much lately.  No pics or anything!  But I’m a bit inspired by Kim’s wonderful news about the arrival of her own 2.0, so I thought I’d do a quick post on MM and C.

MM will be 3 at the end of May.  I’m kind of counting the days.  Right now she’s in a very two year-old place - discovering that with responsibility (ie: “Go over to the drawer and get a zebra diaper, okay?”) comes independence (ie: internal thoughts like, “Dude, I can totally go over to the drawer and get whatever I want out.  What other drawers can I open, and what other things can I take out?”).  So we’re having to figure out, largely by experimentation, where the boundaries are drawn (getting diapers and wet wipes, fine.  Getting knives and other implements of destruction, not fine).  Needless to say, the experimentation is pretty hit and miss, and this tends to result in a lot of frustration for the both of us.  I wind up snapping at her more than I should/like, and she winds up storming off to her room in frustration.

This actually worked to my advantage yesterday, however; I told her she could watch one TV show before her nap, but that she first had to put away her toys.  She stormed off to her room in a snit, got into bed, pulled up the covers, and put herself down for a nap.  It was a good moment.

C. is growing like a weed, mainly based on his eating schedule.  I don’t want to jinx anything by getting too optimistic, but he seems to maybe, sort-of, possibly be transitioning to an  actual eating/sleeping schedule, rather than his current buffet-style system.  We’ll see what happens, but I’m starting to feel cautiously hopeful that he won’t be eating every 1 1/2 to 2 hours until he graduates from high school.  Or, if he does, that he’ll at least start feeding himself.  I have great plans to be sitting ready with a spoonful of rice cereal at midnight on April 18, the day he turns 4 months old.  I know there’s “debate” among pediatricians about when it’s appropriate to start solid food, but, frankly, I think he’d take the stuff now if I could only get past my respect for authority and just give it to him.  General consensus - and I tend to agree - is that once he’s getting solid food, he’ll probably be a much better sleeper.

That said, he does seem to have figured out that nighttime is sleeptime.  He just has a bad habit of getting congested - or, at least, feeling congested - in the middle of the night, and it takes me awhile to get him to the point where he gets over the very little congestion he actually has.  There’s nothing there that I can suction out; just a little snot waaaaay back in his nose that bugs him if he notices it when he’s sleeping at night.  If I let him nurse, he breathes normally, falls asleep, and that’s that - but I tend to forget this at 3 in the morning, and so we’re usually up for at least an hour while my brain comes back online.

(Think I’m kidding?  I’m not.  Happens every night, and every night I forget that nursing him will do the trick.  I’m running on fumes here).

But, knock on wood, they’re both good and we’re all looking forward to the arrival of Spring and the departure of flu - once those two things happen, we’re breaking out of This Island Sofa and spreading our wings.