Blessed with Difficulty

With the holidays now behind us, I submit the following highlights:

1. Scotlen. Scotlen had a bit of a rough holiday. Along with the rest of the population under the age of 7, she was sick in the days leading up to and including Christmas. This illness, combined with the frantic pace of holiday activities, turned our usually cheerful, talkative girl into, um, let’s just say "less than cheerful." She has often been described as a “willful” child, so the combination of "less than cheerful" and "willful" was not ideal. (I do love these optimistic labels we place on our children's various personality traits - kids that "wouldn't shut up" and were "constantly into crap" when I was growing up are now loquacious, inquisitive children). Anyway, it was strange to experience her in such a consistently sour mood, and as we moved days and then weeks into this new version of our child, I began to feel a little lost. Have we always been bad parents or did our failures just begin recently? Will she turn into a true criminal as an adult or just the kind of person everybody makes fun of at informal gatherings? I won't detail all the behaviors here, but they culminated in a series of texts from a babysitter as Kyle and I attempted an adult outing that went something like this:

Babysitter: I’m having a bit of a problem with Scotlen at bedtime. She’s having a little bit of a meltdown.

Us: Feel free to try any technique you deem suitable, bribe, threaten, take away toys, fake a phone call with us, etc.

Babysitter: I would try those things, but she has now locked herself in your bedroom and won’t open the door.

Charming.

At a loss, Kyle and I began a serious crackdown on any and all unwanted behavior. It made for a very rough few days. But the parental “shock and awe” discipline campaign, combined with the return of Scotlen's good health and some full nights of sleep have returned our daughter to us. It is nice to have her back. Also, I don't want to jinx it here, but she is being nice to Jonas. She's not just recognizing him as something more than an annoying family pet, which is progress to be sure, but she's - wait for it - interacting with him. Attempting to play with him, attempting to hold him, stroking his head. I take this as a sign of our super-smart parenting techniques.

2. Kyle. Speaking of parenting techniques, Kyle has more in common with the well-meaning husband from Modern Family than he would like to admit. As with the character on Modern Family, Kyle tends to issue threats to the children that he cannot enforce (e.g. you can either come with us to the restaurant or we will leave you here by yourself; be quiet and go to sleep or you can sleep outside). I'm still waiting for "treat your toys nicely or we'll give them all away." As we were driving to Mimi and Hots’s house to celebrate the Reynolds Christmas with Tim and Tuesday who we now see 2-3 times per year, Scotlen began, um, displaying her new holiday attitude. Kyle announced: “If you speak like that to me one more time, I’m turning this car around and we won’t have Christmas.” I hope Scotlen couldn't see my reflection in the window as I turned away and laughed silently. She was probably too busy repeating whatever it was that got her in trouble again.

3. Jonas. Yes, we have another child and we do know it. Beginning to suspect that we might let Jonas go to kindergarten without teaching him to walk, Grandmommy and Grandfather gave him a rolling baby-entertainment system that he can push around the house. He has really taken to it, learning to navigate corners and other roadblocks. It’s a little like having a 2 foot tall geriatric man on a walker in the house.

In other developments, we decided it just might be more than your average cold when Jonas’s eyes began oozing yellow material. (I’ll refrain from using the word “pus” here, because I think it’s really gross). As it turns out, he has his first ear infection – a double! Send the kid to Vegas and maybe he’ll double down on something more profitable – “I’ll see your ear infection and I’ll raise you some pus and vomit." He’s on the antibiotics, and we’re hoping that, like his sister, his ear infection count will begin and end at one.

As someone more eloquent than I am once said, we may not have it all together, but together we have it all. Hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2010.