Some more low points

Perhaps to be a mother is to feel guilty. I try to be a good mother but sometimes I miss the mark.  There are just so many ways that you can possibly mess up raising children that it's bound to happen.

Here are some things that I wish had gone differently.

Braeden:

When he was nearing two years old and I was quite pregnant with Emma, he decided to jump out of his crib.  We had hardwood floors in our apartment and he had bruises all over his head from falling/jumping out of bed.

Adam and I didn't know what to do so we talked to our parents.  I don't know who was the original source of the idea but someone among them told us to spank him.  They all seemed to agree.  So Adam and I decided that we should spank Braeden to teach him not to jump out of bed.  Telling him not to jump out of bed was not really working.

We hadn't spanked him before but this seemed like a high stakes situation.  I particularly remember a bruise on his little ear.  We had to save our baby from himself!  Adam and I psyched ourselves up for the ordeal.  We decided we'd take turns.  If Braeden jumped out of bed, one of us would go in his room, spank him and put him back in his bed.

So we put Braeden to bed.

We left the room.

He jumped out of bed with a terrific crash.

One of us went in to spank him and put him back into his crib.

Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

It went on for about 45 minutes.  45 really terrible minutes.  Braeden has always been pretty even keeled and pleasant and he was acting like a lunatic, hurling himself to the ground.  It was horrible.  Finally, my pregnant self couldn't take it any more.  I was exhausted because Braeden was heavy.  I told Adam I was done.  I went and lay on our bed and cried.  I think Adam felt a little like I'd deserted the army.  Finally he brought Braeden to me though.  Braeden lay next to me, snuggled in and fell asleep.

The next day our friend Mindy loaned us one of those tents that goes over cribs and Braeden never jumped out of his crib again.

Emma:

I had mono when Emma was an infant.  (I can perhaps blame the mono.) When Emma was nine months old I took her to her well baby doctor visit.  I can't remember our doctor's name but I really liked her.  She was not very warm and fuzzy.  She rather eyed my babies sharply and didn't seem to miss a thing.  I had a lot of confidence in her.  On this particular visit, she told me that I was starving Emma.  (See, she was not one to mince words.)  She showed me Emma's growth chart.  She had all but stopped growing.  Her head was still growing a little.  "That's what happens when a baby starves," the doctor said, "All the nutrients go to the brain."

To say that I was reeling would be a huge understatement.  I. Was. Starving. My. Baby.  I'd had no idea.  She was a happy little cherub.  I was mostly breastfeeding her but was introducing some solids.  She was starving?!?

The doctor told me to buy formula which is exactly what I did on the way home.  I was in a surreal haze.  Over and over I kept rolling my doctor's words over in my mind.  I was starving her.

Compared to my boys, it was really easy to get Emma to take a bottle...

Mark:

The year Mark was born, I was homeschooling Braeden kindergarten.  So Mark's whole life has had the backdrop of homeschooling.  When he was a toddler, the boy wouldn't watch TV like a normal American toddler.  No interest.  It was a lot more fun to get eggs out of the fridge and break them on the carpet, to climb the rocking chair and knock it over and break it, to fill the toilet with Lego bricks and to get up on the school room table and dance across the school work.

Was this all a cry for attention?

Yes.  Yes, it was.

But I was homeschooling.  And still trying to give him attention.  It was crazy town.  If I hadn't been so determined to home school I am sure I would have given up.  I bought a gate, the type you put at the top of the stairs to keep your little one from tumbling down.  I put the gate in Mark's bedroom door though.  His bedroom was off the school room.  I would put him in Mark jail while I gave the other two assignments, then I would climb over the gate and go visit Mark in Mark jail.  Every single day I would berate myself for locking my red headed darling up.  What kind of mother was I?  As for Mark, he started playing with Legos and hasn't really ever stopped.