Claudia’s Chapter

It was a love it day! July 31, 2006

Well, this week was definately an interesting one, what with all the new rules for the kids and the endless spasms of toddler hitting and screaming.  I have to admit when I had to post rule “#7 No provoking”, I honestly went to a dark place, thinking I was just doing a terrible job as a mom.  But today, the light peaked its rays through once more and I think all is well again.

If my life were a movie, yesterday would have been the climatic scene when the audience sits on the edges of their chairs wondering if the heroine is about to be killed.  Today, they would have sat back in relief, as all ended well.

I tried harder yesterday and today to follow the age old advice of rewarding good behaviour with excessive attention, and ignoring the undesirable habits of toddlers.  It seems to be working.  Thomas went out of his way to be a good big brother today: sharing, teaching, and showering Christopher with phrases like “great job!” “good try” “it’s ok, you’ll get it!”  I was so happy to watch all of this positiveness and light pour from Thomas, and the happiness that it created in Christopher.

I even felt like a kid again, as we goofed around on the playground, played catch and read books.   Today there was no kids screaming, and no mommy screaming.  Just a whole lotta fun. It was a love it day.

Sweet Irony

I just read a great post at http://tomama.blogs.com/mubar/ called the Tipping Point. The author, Jen Lawrence,made some great points about how corporations are crunching the numbers and realizing that it doesn’t pay to lose well educated workers to the mommy-track. I’ve read similar things in the past, but her perspective was interesting to me because I started thinking about the irony in all of this. I mean, how ironic that the very number crunching that in the past, has allowed new mothers to ‘choose’ to quit their jobs to go home, now indicates that perhaps it would be better to offer the ‘new mothers’ some better options. Ensuring that employees have decent work/life options might just make them want to work (for someone other than their families I mean)

New Rules July 28, 2006

I’ve kept a list of rules on my fridge for a few months now. They are:

1. Always listen

2. Always try to be kind.

3. No hitting

4. No pushing

5. No biting

6. No snatching

Well, today I added #7.

No provoking.

I was washing dishes and I overheard Thomas say “Chris, hit me, hit me.” Of course, Christopher, being 1, did hit him. Immediately Thomas screamed, “Mom, Christopher HIT me!!!”

Having obviously heard the entire conversation, I went over to the fridge with my black marker and added #7.

In a way I think #7 is a sign that he is maturing. I mean he didn’t hit anyone. He told someone else to. Who knows?

Tightening Security… July 22, 2006

I should start this by writing, that for the most part my boys are pretty well behaved. I’ve only had one public, hysterical tantrum from Thomas and it involved a trip to the haircutters’…So I was absolutely shocked when he had a movie-quality tantrum today.

SCENE 1: We pull up to the house of old friends. Thomas unexpectedly bolts from the car and hides behind a bush while screaming “I am not going in there!!!” (”There” by the way, is a very nice waterfront home filled with the sweetest, happily married couple you could find)

BACKSTORY: You see, last night I dropped the boys off with my in-laws so Alex and I could tie up some loose ends on the LittleChapters site. Alex was working on some additional card/photo generation technology and I was working on setting up SSL on our servers. (Given that LittleChapters.com will be hosting the journals and photos of countless new parents, security is a big issue for us) Usually if we leave the boys at my in-laws for the night we do so after a good week of preparing them for the outing. Well, this time I didn’t prepare anybody, because it was a last minute decision. This did not make Thomas happy, as evidenced by that post-traumatic-Thomas-in-the-bush scene.

Scene 2: After realizing why Thomas was freaking, I calmly told him that we would just be at our friends’ house for the afternoon and that we would all go home together. I expected a speedy resolution–a wiping of tears, a reassuring hug, followed by a calm re-entry.

Scene3: I walked into the house thinking Thomas would just follow me now. (Hadn’t I just told him it was ok?) As I was saying hello to one of our friends, I notice through the windows, Thomas running towards the dock…away from Alex who is soon accelerating! Alex managed to catch him, and bring him inside.

Scene 4: We took the screaming Thomas upstairs to calm down and watch a tape. This worked!

Resolution: Everyone calmed down and we had a great day.

The IRONY: We were there to visit friends who are trying to decide if/when they will have kids.

Why the title about security?: I thought it was interesting that you can secure a site…you can encrypt data…but at the end of the day you can’t control the outbursts of a 3 year old. This got me thinking about how most of the major security breaches are not caused by some hacker, but by sloppy workers who leave their data laying around. (you know, people you just can’t control)

The plates are flying and the curtain is opening. July 18, 2006

LittleChapters is about to launch to an open beta, and I’ve never felt like I’ve had so many plates in the air. Last week we had to sort our relationship with the credit card vendor, with the printing facility and the shipping facility. Then Alex had to write the APIs for each of them.

Then, of course, over the weekend, we completed the initial setup of our more robust server configuration at the new hosting facility. Suddenly I was rolling up my sleeves and talking shop again and remembering why I used to feel acute anxiety when a server would go down back in the ecommerce investment bank days.
Then there was the late night call to one of the investors to answer some questions.

I feel a strange calm though, because (as I knock on wood) each relationship seems ok. We’re just at the final stage before an open launch,and I feel much like I used to before the opening night of a play…We’re rehearsing. We’ve had applause from our first audience…but we haven’t let in the masses yet. But I can see the plates in the air, and while I can’t assume that one will never fall, I’ve realized that Alex and I are pretty good at making sure that the ground is well padded.

Staying Afloat and Flying. July 3, 2006

After what seemed like many more than twenty minutes of packing, filling sippy cups, finding towels, and, of course, changing diapers after I thought we were ready to go, the babies and I made it to the Lake for the first time this summer, sans friends, sans husband. It was just the three of us and it was actually heavenly.

In fact it continues to be heavenly, as I sit here realizing that they are both still asleep from our early morning adventure. (no one usually naps in our house) They are really starting to emerge from these formative years as friends, which of course, makes me happy. Christopher admires Thomas immensely and seems to want to try to do every possible thing that Thomas does. The only problem with this is that Christopher is really still a baby, and can’t do most of the things that Thomas can do.
Examples:

1.Thomas managed to successfully float in the water. I was very impressed!

Christopher then tried to stay afloat and, well, sunk quickly. I was still impressed! (why wouldn’t I be?)

2. Then Thomas climbed the largest slide (it’s about 6 feet high). With a quick launch, he was off.

Then Christopher had to try the largest slide. (again it’s 6 feet high—I stayed within arms reach at the peak) And with a quick launch he was off too. ….but wait…Christopher didn’t stop!

He slid down the length of the slide and then he was AIRBORNE! He flew about one foot from the bottom of the slide to the ground. There I was so worried about the height of the slide, I hadn’t even thought about how quickly someone weighing slightly less than thirty pounds could be propelled from it.

Fortunately he was fine. In fact, he stood up with sand on his face and laughed. Thomas turned to me and said “Mom, what was that??” I turned to Christopher and he said “I a BIRD!”

Oh, of course, that answers everything!. Sort of.