Entering The Golden Age?

Late Blooming Mom has an older brother who also became a parent later-in-life.  He has one child, and she's about a month shy of twelve as I write this.  He once described the period of a child's life between ages six and twelve as "The Golden Age Of Childhood," a time when kids are self-reliant enough to do some things for themselves, way more interesting to be around than they used to be, yet not yet infected with the attitude and hormones that tend to govern adolescence.

All signs point to Thing 1 and Thing 2 entering that Golden Age. 

Every day, they finds things about which they seem to be just plain thrilled.

They are gigglers, even uproroarius laughers, and can tell and make their own jokes.

They are curious, asking questions to figure out the way the world works.  They are quick to put new concepts together, and creatively combine old knowledge and new -- if not with entirely correct results.  (Just last night, when I was reading a picture book to Thing 1 and the text mentioned "Neon," he asked if "Ne-off" is when the lights go off).   They have activities about which they are passionate.  Even the mere promise of dinner at Souplantation, where they will get baby ice cream cones, is cause for celebration.

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The Return Of Grouchy Mom

I don't wanna be Grouchy Mom, really, I don't.  Neither do my mom friends.

But sometimes, we find ourselves being really, really Grouchy to our kids.  Take yesterday.  Thing 2 announced, more than two-thirds of the way home from school, that she'd left Cheetah, the stuffed animal with whom she sleeps nightly, back at school. 

This isn't the first time it's happened.  But despite my warning, the last time it happened, that I would NOT return to school for it, and the lecture I delivered about how HER toys were HER responsibility... well, I turned around the car and went back to get the damn thing.

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The Newden Days: Five And Counting

"Mommy, do we live in the newden days?" the boy asks as we read a bedtime story and I stop to explain that people sometimes wore hats to bed to keep warm "in the olden days."

"Yes," I say, after I stop laughing several minutes later. "We live in the newden days."

These newden days, I am getting used to having five-year-olds, and they are, indeed, very different from four-year-olds. The tantrums are fewer and tend to come only when someone hasn't had enough sleep. But they've been replaced by a near constant condition best called "selective listening," which is mostly not listening when asked to do something, but listening when there is the possibility of a treat, a new toy, or TV watching. Thanks to the inspiration of the president of the local parents of multiples club, I've instituted a sticker chart in which the kids earn a sticker if I only have to tell them to do something once. Fifty stickers -- a very big number for them to contemplate, but an achievable one -- will earn them a trip to the toy store at the Farmer's Market, and the chance to pick something out. We're only one day into the plan, so it's premature to say it's golden, but at least for now, it seems to be working.

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It's Not The Terrible Twos You Have To Worry About: It's The F^&#ing Fours

Sometime last year, I was at one of the monthly support meetings thrown by my local parents of multiples club, and the club co-president was decrying "The F^%#ing Fours," the phase her twin boys were going through. She said, "Everyone talks about the terrible twos. But no one warns you about the fucking fours!"

At the time, I just laughed, and figured maybe she was exaggerating. Maybe she'd had a particularly hard day with her boys, two kids I'd only glimpsed at club events, where they were invariably well-behaved and adorable.

But now I know about the F^%#ing Fours. And I want them to be Fucking Over.

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"No I Amen't!"

That's what Thing 1, sick with a cold, vehemently said this morning when his sister inquired if he was going to school with her.

I'm not exactly sure how "No I'm not" somehow became "No I amen't!"

But I can respect the passion.

Still, the big feelings these little people get can overwhelm. And I don't just mean them.

I recall a David Sipress cartoon from the New Yorker in which a father and mother faced their young progeny, and the father addressed the kids thusly: "Your mother and I are feeling overwhelmed, so you'll have to bring yourselves up." (See the cartoon here.)

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Toddlers Need A Turkey Timer

You know that little plastic thermometer that pops up when the Thanksgiving turkey is done?

This morning, Late Blooming Dad came up with the idea that there should be such a thing for toddlers ... only it should pop up ten minutes before they're done. And by done I mean about to become impossible.

Today we took Thing 1 and Thing 2 to the Brentwood Country Mart, a place most small kids adore. That's because it has coin-operated rides, a toy store, and ample kid-friendly food options, as well as an outdoor courtyard in which to eat adjacent to aforementioned kiddie rides and toy store. You'd think our kids would've been thrilled to be there.

For a little while, they were. They emptied our pockets of spare quarters, and rode the same rides they'd ridden before with no sign of boredom. They eyed the toy store and promised to be good and eat their lunches in exchange for the chance to inside. But somehow, by the time food arrived, their moods had shifted.

It wasn't as if we hadn't fed them breakfast and offered plentiful snacks. They'd had French toast and fruit before attending a one-hour kiddie gym class, and upon arrival at the Country Mart, were given yogurt squeezers (for the uninitiated, that's yogurt in a tube, so it's like a push-up popsicle). We'd also plied them with breakfast bars just before and after gym class, though they'd only nibbled on these. We'd even given them the City Bakery's delectable pretzel croissants to munch on while waiting for their food to be prepared (but they stopped after a couple of bites each).

Food arrived. The grilled cheese for him and eggs on toast for her went mostly uneaten; demands for mommy and daddy's lemonade were incessant; and when daddy procured rotisserie chicken legs, they still had to be coaxed to get protein into their systems. Only the promise of the toy store visit coaxed them to eat the chicken they normally devour. By now, they were unable to sit in one place and wanted to run amok on the courtyard ramp, only there were too many people around to make it sufficiently easy to navigate.

Daddy explained they could go to the toy store on condition that they would not be allowed to get a new toy. Reluctantly, they agreed to this precondition. By now it was getting precariously close to nap time, and here's where that turkey timer popping up would've been most useful.

Unfortunately, though we managed to coax one out of the store peacefully, the other had to be carried out screaming. By the time we arrived at the car, screaming one had calmed and was practically asleep, but the other hit her stride and refused to get into the car seat, prompting an exasperating wrestling match. The ride home was marked by a stop to calm her and re-insert her into the car seat's five-point harness, out of which she had partly wriggled. The top-of-the-lungs protest continued for a few painful minutes, followed by wimpering and at last, when I put a comforting hand on hers while contorting my body in ways no one should to reach the back seat, quiet finally reigned.

It was on this drive that Late Blooming Dad came up with the idea for an early warning Toddler Timer similar to the Turkey timer.

I'm ready to buy stock in the company that first puts these on the market.

Back To School, AKA The Return Of The Von Crankensteins

What is it about the start of the school year -- or in my kids' case, the preschool year -- that brings out the worst in everyone in Late Blooming Mom's house?

Thing 1 and Thing 2 returned to school last Thursday after a nearly two-week absence from the school itself (it's where they attended summer camp), and promptly turned into the toddler equivalents of Dr. Von Frankenstein's famous monster and his bride. Worse, in reaction to their tantrums, whining, and incessant demands, Late Blooming Mom and Dad were similarly transformed -- into Von Crankensteins, the elders.

During the weekend following the resumption of school, there has been more outright yelling, foot-stomping, wheedling, needling, mewling, and collapsing onto the floor into a flailing heap while kicking at anyone daring to come into kicking distance than during our entire end-of-summer vacation, even though THAT involved two long airplane trips, sleeping in an unfamiliar location (grandma and grandpa's house) and the total disruption of daily routine.

Last year around this time, I remember talking with my dearest friend Karen, an elementary school teacher and mother of two who has always displayed the cool, calm wisdom of an earth mother even though she was pretty young by the standards of our post-collegiate crowd when she had her first kid. Karen told me that the weeks around the back to school period are ALWAYS stressful in her house. It matters not that her family has been through the school year's start time and time again. Crankiness abounds, snippyness becomes the normal mode of communication, and everybody seems to be in a constant bad mood.

Still, I was unprepared for the strength and force of this perfect storm, this emotional tidal wave of short tempers and hair triggers. Sometimes when I've had a bad night's sleep or two, and the kids are less pliable/more vehement about getting their way than normal, I find myself momentarily turning bitchy and tight-faced and gritting my teeth or storming out of the room until I can get hold of myself. But this past weekend, I was in a near-constant state of maternal irritation, just-about-to-boil fury, and more than once, my pot simply boiled over. I taught my kids bad lessons by modeling the loss of self-control when frustrated. Bring on the Child-Rearing Police. If yelling, door slamming and storming out are the charges, I plead very, very guilty.

I have an old friend I wish I was more in touch with, a Kentuckian by birth, whom I remember, when she had two toddlers, using the vividly colorful Southern vernacular phrase, "stepping on my last nerve." I guess the idea behind it is that you've got a bunch of exposed nerves when you're a mom, and your kids keep stepping on them, and yet you cope, until they get to that very last, untouched nerve. And then they don't just step -- they stomp. You utterly lose it, and the kids know it. It's as if they've been waiting to provoke you to reach this point, just to see what will happen, or worse, thrive on the negative attention this maternal volcanic explosion garners them.

My last nerve has most definitely been stomped on.

Dad's too, for it was he who had to get them out the door without my help this morning (I had an early appointment) and drag them, howling and clinging, into school in front of all the other moms or dads at drop-off. (Thanks to those parents who've helped out during moments like this, taken pity on him after a shared look of recognition and a sigh of relief that at least it wasn't their kid(s) this time).

Dad called me to vent on his way to work. It was his way of coping. Now I am coping my way: trying to take some time for myself to be calm, get into some kind of Zen place where fountains of water are gently flowing (or at least I hear the fountain in the courtyard outside my office window), my inner self is at peace, and I am in control so I won't utterly lose it later when I retrieve Thing 1 and Thing 2 from preschool.

I can't really blame them for their rebelliousness if I consider that, during vacation, they had mom and dad's undivided attention 24/7, doting grandparents, gifts of new toys and books for the plane rides, access to more treats than usual, and days devoted to visiting playgrounds, museums, a kiddie pool, and the toy-strewn houses and apartments of our relatives and friends with children. Then, suddenly, they were thrust back into full-day preschool, where they were separated from mom and dad for many hours, had to share with lots of other kids, and conform to what somebody else decided they should do. They weren't happy about this change, and registered their dissatisfaction sort of the way our cat did when we picked him up from four nights' boarding at the vet's. (That night, the cat pooped and peed in all the wrong places. Message received, oh furry one.)

But then again, my kids can theoretically reason and communicate at this age -- certainly more than my cat will ever be able to. So did they have to be SUCH primadonnas in venting their displeasure? I'm reminded of the scene in SPINAL TAP when Nigel Tufnel throws a snitfit over the size of the cocktail bread he's been given to snack on backstage (not to mention and his irrefutable -to-him, child-like logic that a guitar amplifier that goes to eleven is SOOOO much better than one that goes to ten, even though it really is no louder).

I console myself that after the worst of Thing 2's fits this weekend, she came and found me in my bedroom, where I'd curled up in a big comfy chair, utterly spent ... and she snuggled with me. Despite my having lost it in front of her, she still sought the comfort of my embrace, and we calmed down together. Later that night, my son held my hand and snuck into the space under my arm, where he so conveniently fits. Perhaps a lesson has been learned amidst the icky-ness of back to school stress: that even when mom -- or kid -- loses it, there is still plenty of love to be had around here. Getting angry doesn't mean you forfeit love and acceptance. My kids know my love for them is secure, even though their behavior may mean the temporary withdrawal of my apparently much coveted attention.

We don't have to like each other all the time, especially when it's back to school week, and we're all being impossible -- in kid or grown-up form. Somtimes we really wear each other out, but to paraphrase artist/author Ian Falconer of the OLIVIA children's book series, we love each other anyway.

Psycho Kiddies, qu' es-ce que c'est?

Nobody tells you when you have a child that children are psycho.

I don't mean all the time.

But I do mean when they're hungry, tired, or anywhere in the vicinity of bedtime.

Last night, Thing 2 went into her nightly nuts routine. It happened pretty much on cue, right around the time it was politely suggested to her that it was time to get into pajamas. This was the signal she was waiting for. Suddenly she was on the floor, kicking and flailing, making contradictory and nonsensical demands ("Button my buttons" on the dress she was already wearing and needing to take off, "I wanna do it myself," "I want mommy to do it," "I want daddy," etc.). Any attempt by mommy or daddy to touch her or comply with one of her requests was met with a "Noooooo!" and more thrashing about. Forcible attempts to remove clothing didn't work; gently coaxed efforts finally succeeded in getting her naked. But then there was the issue of taking off the underwear and putting on the pull-ups, which mommy and daddy still require Thing 2 (and Thing 1 for that matter) to wear at night, to avoid a wet bed. Said pull-ups are "too squishy" and were unacceptable unless flat from the package. When a pull-up deemed worthy was located and donned, the next power struggle began, over the mandatory tooth-brushing. At this point, mommy and daddy pretty much gave up.

Oddly enough, the storm passed of its own accord a mere moment or two later. Perhaps the tipping point occurred when Thing 2 noticed the calm, ready-for-bed Thing 1 contentedly doing a puzzle with mommy. Perhaps it was simply that the fit had run its course. But no sooner than Thing 2 began to horn in on the puzzle activity than Thing 1 went from content to crazy in mere seconds. The tantrum's trigger? Natch, it was Thing 2's desire to share in the puzzle fun. Thing 1 wanted the puzzle to his own little self.

There was more sturm and drang, but finally mommy was able to mediate a sharing solution that seemed to pacify all parties. The kids then played as sweetly and politely as a couple of proper English children at a white glove tea party.

Wha?

Even after 3-plus years into this parenting thing, I do not understand how children can be adorable, kind, gentle, huggy, kissable, squeezable munchkins saying "I wuv you" in that soft, quiet, tender way that makes you melt ... and seconds later, turn into Israeli commandos who'll stop at nothing to defend the Holy Land, even if that Holy Land is a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 24-piece puzzle of a pastoral picnic scene featuring Mickey, Donald, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto.

What goes on in those developing brains, anyway?

I once saw an interview with the creators of SOUTH PARK, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in which they explained that, contrary to the prevailing opinion that kids are born innocent and sweet, they're actually born selfish and mean. I don't subscribe to that view, but there are moments when I can see a little of Eric Cartman in each of my kids ... and while I enjoy the antics of Eric Cartman, I prefer them on screen. Parenting Eric Cartman would be hell.

I'm continually amazed at how suddenly the psycho behavior takes hold; how intense it is; and how it can end just as suddenly as it began. Sure I try to avoid the obvious triggers -- the aforementioned "too hungry" and "too tired" symptoms that are often the precursors of a full-on psycho episode. But let's face it, you can't avoid bedtime. Sometime soon, Thing 2 is gonna have to learn to get ready for bed without the pj request prompting an attack of the crazies.

I find myself repeating my new mantra: Ignore and Endure. That is, when I'm not succumbing to the temptation to scream at the kids, and have the self-control to temporarily leave the room. (One mom friend manages by breathing into a paper bag.)

I know I must've had my psycho moments, and now I imagine that somewhere, my late mom is probably keeping score, tabulating my own kids' fits and cheering them on, knowing they've still got far to go to equal what I put her through.

Payback's a bitch, mom. But really: was I this bad?

Surviving Those "Sudden Squalls"

Had lunch recently with another late blooming mom (to two preschoolers) and we were discussing tantrums and fits... because when you're the parent of a preschooler, that's what you wind up talking about. We were commiserating about how sometimes, no matter how hard we try to avoid tantrums -- feeding our kids before they melt down, or getting them home in time for that crucial nap -- sometimes the kids just gotta let fly. She referred to these unstoppable tantrums as "sudden squalls" and I nodded my head in recognition: what a perfect expression of what our kids do. Like a fast-moving, brief rainstorm, these tantrums or fits come with little warning, and they don't last that long (if we're lucky), but they are mighty, mighty bad weather.

Lately Thing 1 and Thing 2 have been subject to sudden squalls two, three, even four times in a day. Kicking is sometimes involved (thankfully, not us or each other, but the floors, walls and doors are taking a beating). Screaming almost certainly is. And the main issue seems to be that they want something they can't have, or don't want to do something they're supposed to. But sometimes it's hard to say just what a particular squall is about ... other than getting home from preschool after a long day, and deciding that, in the safety of home, it's simply time to be impossible.

What's a parent to do? My lunch companion pretty much deals with them the same way Late Blooming Mom does: ignore and endure.

Fits and tantrums are, according to most of the childcare books in the growing pile of them on my night table, age-appropriate behavior for preschoolers, part of the territory, something to be expected. Some of them are going to happen because parents are trying to set important limits (no, you cannot have a cupcake before dinner, and yes, you must take a bath tonight). Some of them are going to happen because you simply can't always get home in the nap window, and over- tiredness is going to kick in. Or because you forgot a snack for that trip to the park. Some way or other, they're going to happen.

I don't know at what age kids outgrow having sudden squalls -- let alone a four-squall day. I'm sure I had my share of them (maybe more -- control-freak Virgo that I am). But I do know this: every time I watch a sudden squall hit a kid at the park, the mall, or in a restaurant, I feel -- well, first I feel glad it's not my kid, for once -- but I feel strangely comforted. That squall means I'm not alone. And it also means, next time one of my kids is squall-ing, I know that this, too, shall pass.

Long Night's Journey Into Day

Thing 1 has been suffering: fever, and a cough so hard it can make him throw up. Poor little guy did so in the middle of his nap yesterday, so I had to give him a bath. Then he did so again at 5 a.m. this morning. These past few nights he's been up at one or two, then again before sunrise. There's been a trip to the doctor, the introduction of new medicine -- with a mask, nebulizer and chamber to breathe into -- and lots of generally icky feeling moments.

No matter how hard a slog it is to get through the nights -- and it's a slog for sure -- I just wanna wrap him up in love and make it all better. It breaks my heart that I can't. I wonder how many nights I had like this when I was a kid, and my heart goes out to my late parents, who surely had to deal with some of the same. This is how parenthood can soften you, in a good way.

But I'm amazed at my own tenderness, given that just a few days ago, Thing 1 was being impossible. His terrible-threes seem to have been peaking of late, fits aplenty, with kicking and whining and a million surly "I don't want to's". As a result, I've been furious at him. Furious to a point of fury that you can get to only with someone you love.

I simply can't get over how my feelings can go from teeth-gritting anger to heart-melting tenderness toward the same small, 30-plus-pound being.

Yesterday when I walked into his room and found him covered in throw-up, he gave me the saddest look, and then said, simply, "You take care of me."

At moments like that, I know what I'm here for.

Later, I dried his hair and carried him back to his room from the bathtub, snug in a towel, all wrapped up like a human cannoli. He still asks me to carry him using the wrong pronoun. He says, "I carry you" when he wants me to carry him.

But in some ways, he's right. By allowing me to love him, he's carrying me.

I just hope the lil' guy feels better soon.

Am I Raising Sybil? Are You?

Back when I was a kid, this book came out about a woman with multiple personalities, SYBIL. Not long after, you might remember it as a movie with "You Like Me, You Really Like Me" Oscar winner Sally Field. (I'm really going to date myself now, but before NORMA RAE, I always thought of her as "The Flying Nun" -- yes, there used to be a sitcom about a nun who could fly; what can I say, it was a simpler time). Anyway, this is a longish way of getting to my subject: how toddlers can be sweet-as-pie one minute, and banshee-wailing, tantrum-throwing, Linda Blair-in-"Exorcist"-mode maniacs.

This is what happened yesterday.

I go to pick up Thing 1 and Thing 2 from preschool. They run into my arms and greet me with great big bear hugs, the kind that make you soooooo glad to be a parent. (One time a preschool teacher of theirs watched them bestow these hugs on me after running into my arms and exclaimed,"Wow, I wish somebody would love me that much.") In this moment, they more than live up to the nickname a friend of mine and her husband have bestowed on them: The Adorables.

I coax the Adorables into their car seats and get them buckled in with offers of a treat: a small, wrapped, hollow milk chocolate chick, the kind that's crowding the supermarket seasonal displays in preparation for Easter. (Sidenote: yes, I bought my Jewish kids what is technically an Easter treat, but pagan celebrations of spring predate Easter AND Judaism, and besides, few bribes work as well as chocolate.) So we're driving home, and happy chocolate consumption is going on in the back seat, with all its gooey messiness...

Then it happens. Suddenly, and without warning, Thing 2 -- my daughter -- turns on a dime, morphing from Ms. Sweetness-and-Light to a screaming, writhing She-Creature of the Dark. She's finished her chocolate treat and suddenly noticed she's wearing a long-sleeve shirt over a short-sleeve shirt. It's the same outfit she's had on ALL DAY. But for no explicable reason, she now finds it offensive, and it must be taken off this minute. Nay, this second.

Those moms reading this and thinking, "It's your own fault, you gave her chocolate," can congratulate yourselves on calling out my tactical parenting error. But in my defense, I must add that chocolate has never previously had this dramatic -- and quick -- effect on Thing 2.

I tell her I'm driving. I tell her I can't stop now. I tell her we'll remove the offending garment the minute we get home.

But she cannot wait.

I have a choice: let the screaming ruin the drive home for myself and for Thing 1 -- who is still in some kind of chocolate-induced bliss, but won't be for long if this continues -- or I can pull over, unbuckle the She-Creature from the car seat, and whip off the shirt.

I do the latter, in the interests of peace. I recognize, even as I do it, that it's a mistake. I have given in. Thing 2 has played the Mommy Slot Machine and won a jackpot, and now she's going to keep playing, hoping she'll win again.

Still, I'm foolishly optimistic. I buckle her back in, letting her do the final "click" (a must when it comes to getting her into the car seat without fuss) and pull out.

Ms. Sweetness-And-Light has returned.

But her reign is short-lived. She-Creature is back within moments. Thing 2 can suddenly no longer abide the hair scrunchies and clips that have been in her hair ALL DAY. They must come out now, no matter how much of her own hair she pulls out with them. The trouble is, she can't pull them out herself. They get stuck, and she wails for my help. She demands, as commandingly as a highway patrol cop, that I pull over.

I'm damned if I'm going to comply, because then all is lost: she's going to know, if she wails long enough and loud enough, that I will give in.

So I compromise. At a stoplight, I put on the emergency brake, pray to the traffic gods the light stays red long enough, unbuckle myself, reach back, and pull out the offending hair paraphernalia.

The light changes. We move on. Ms. Sweetness-And-Light doesn't return, but neither does the She-Creature. Instead, Thing 2 becomes The Silent One.

Is this some utterly new personality? Or is she just tired? I don't have long to contemplate.

Thing 1 (my son) pipes up. By now he, too, has finished his chocolate treat. And now he declares it is his turn to pick the song on the car music system. He wants a particular song. I comply quickly, switching over to the requested song. Thing 1 insists this is not the song he wants -- even though I know damn well it is. "I want the other song," he says, then adding the same title of the song that's already playing. I have no clue why he thinks there are two distinct songs with the same title, or if there's some other song he's thinking of but can't articulate its name. All I know is, he is going on and on about it, becoming increasingly upset.

In protest, his shoes are flung off, scattering sand from the preschool playground all over the back seat.

They're quickly followed by his socks.

Then Thing 2 ends her silence. "It's MY turn!" she wails. She-Creature is back.

Before we get home, she's shoeless and sockless too.

Somehow, I restore calm, put socks and shoes back on, and haul them each out of the car into the garage, all the while singing "Ring Around The Rosey" to them -- when in trouble, distract, distract, distract!

Now my challenge is to get us inside the building lobby before we reach "All Fall Down" in the lyrics -- when they undoubtedly will. I don't want them to get filthy from plopping down on the garage floor, though the prospect of dirt doesn't phase them.

Happily, they throw themselves into singing, and race into the lobby, where they fall down in giggles, abandoning themselves to the perfect, giddy silliness that can only be achieved by three-year-olds. Once again, they are the Adorables.

And I am left wondering ... should I have named them each "Sybil?"

"I Want To Sleep With Daddy!"

Back in freshman psychology class at Brown, I vaguely remember reading about the Elektra complex (in which, according to Carl Jung, the daughter is temporarily in love with the father), and how it peaks sometime in early childhood.

At Late Blooming Mom's house, we appear to have entered the height of my daughter's Elektra phase -- and while not a Greek tragedy by any stretch, it brings with it no shortage of pain.

When deprived of Daddy's presence, even momentarily -- say, when the poor guy has to go use the can and would like a mere moment or two of privacy -- Thing 2 explodes. You moms and dads no doubt have seen the like of it: a feet flailing, throat wailing, wake the neighbors tantrum. Sadly, nothing Late Blooming Mom does or says can stop it. Nothing can end it save Daddy's eventual, though reluctant, return.

Tempers are flaring. Nerves are short. Words are uttered by my just-turned-three-year-old girl that hurt, and hurt deeply. She didn't learn to say "Go away, mommy" and "I don't like you" from us: we don't talk like that around here, though for sure there are moments when we give in to our worst instincts and say stuff we regret. But it's no consolation that she may have picked up these hurtful phrases at school. They still hurt.

You'd think being a Late Blooming Mom, I'd have some emotional maturity and experience to bring to the table in a situation like this, so it might not bother me the way it would other moms. I'd be more resilient. I'd be able to see it as the healthy, though not pleasant to endure, sign of a normal developmental stage. I'd take it in stride, not let it keep me up nights.

No such luck. Being rejected by your toddler sucks, no matter your "maturity" when it happens.

But damage to Late Blooming Mom's psyche aside, it's Daddy who is the parent suffering the most. Our pint-sized Elektra won't let him alone. Bedtime -- when separation from Daddy is imminent -- is her biggest trauma of the day, and thus, ours.

During one of her bedtime tantrums some weeks ago, we let Thing 2 come into our bed -- not something we do often, as we decided long ago the "family bed" concept wouldn't do our marriage any favors . That particular night, though, we were tired, we were desperate. We ignored the advice of every credible parenting book, website, and blog. We caved.

But we quickly realized our mistake. The very next night, when we'd rested a bit and were better able to maintain our parental resolve, we refused our daughter's request for a repeat. Fortified by the memory of her previous success, yet now denied the same privilege, she wailed those telling words: "I want to sleep with Daddy!"

I tried to re-assure Daddy, who was immediately beset by visions of nightly bed incursions, "It just shows how much she loves you." To which he replied, in a tone devoid of humor: "She has a funny way of showing it."

Recognizing that our daughter may be facing genuine anxiety at this nightly separation -- even though she shares a room with her twin brother, so she's never alone in there -- we have recently decided on a compromise. In an effort to meet her very real need, but keep our own bed our territory (barring the occasional need to console a child after a nightmare), Daddy will lie down in her room next to the crib each night, until she falls asleep.

Maybe it's a Hail Mary pass. But we're not above the occasional Hail Mary (even though we're Jewish ... but then, come to think of it, so was Mary).

We're about a week into the new strategy. Some nights it works, but it's not perfect, as was demonstrated tonight when Daddy had to leave She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Appeased to go to the john, and promises of his quick return were not sufficient to avert a melt down.

That was about an hour ago. Tonight's fit is slowly fading into memory. Thing 2 is now peacefully asleep.

Daddy is out having a beer.

Late Blooming Mom is feeling like a third wheel. But I suspect I'll be the one in need of alcohol soon. If only I could remember from freshman psychology: just how long will it be before my son's Oedipal Complex is due?

At Least We Know She Won't Break Under Torture

Wrestling my recalcitrant daughter into her car seat is NOT what I had in mind when I was just aspiring to later-in-life momhood, still in the throes of a long campaign against infertility, and bucking myself up with visions of sweet babies dancing in my head. But as Hillary Clinton's lately been saying, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose."

Or in my case, curses muttered in furious frustration that come back to haunt me seconds later when my son, in the adjacent car seat, gleefully repeats them.

"Goddamit!" my son blurts, with a delighted look on his face as he tries out this new, clearly naughty, and therefore deliciously fun to utter, turn of phrase. Meanwhile, I continue a desperate struggle to secure Thing 2 into her car seat for her own safety, a point that is entirely lost on her. As she has on other, similar occasions, Thing 2 proves as expert at arching her back as a Santa Monica yoga instructor. She screams with the lung power of a Wagnerian opera heroine.

But what's really, truly, astonishing in a creature of less than thirty pounds, is the size of her will.

My girl does not give in.

Writhing, kicking, twisting and contorting, she keeps it up as she wears me down.

Other late-blooming-moms I know -- admirable, steadfast, capable women who know a thing or two about what it takes to be a wife, mom, and working woman in this world -- assure me that my daughter's having a strong will is a quality that will stand her in good stead later in life. But in the midst of the great car seat battle of '07, the way I put it -- to my neighbor, who happened to be passing by in our shared condo garage -- was this: "At least we know she won't break under torture."

My friends are right: persistence and determination are going to make my daughter a force with whom to be reckoned some day.

I just hope it's day she's in her garage, wrestling her own daughter into her car seat.