It was a rainy day here yesterday. Phil took off to Target early in the AM to try to find some Lego's for the girls to play with. He came home with something entirely different.

For $10 he had found a game system that hooked into the tv that played (get this) Ms. PacMan, Galaga, Pole Position and a couple of others less well known to us. Remember the original Atari systems?!? Remember how much they cost at the time?!? Remember playing in the arcades, for a quarter per play (of course now you can't play in the arcades for less than 50 cents)?

What I want to know is where are Donkey Kong and Centipede?!?

Of course, Phoebe, being her father's daughter, has been playing Pole Position and Ms. PacMan over and over (although, thankfully, not to the point of obsession that some kids reach) the ENTIRE time saying "SEE! The whole thing is meant to make me LOSE!" Apparently, the whole world is out to get her right now, including Namco Game Systems! So why can't she just put the thing down and walk away? Despite herself she must be having some fun.

According to many of the "sleep experts" making recommendations on if/when to let your baby "cry it out" (which has a different definition to different people as well), somehow the magic aged of 6 months has arisen. Actually according to developmental psychologists, even at 6 months babies don't have the cognitive capacity to know that you will come back if you leave them. So checking on them only really serves, per Erikson and Piaget, to calm them for the moment. In the end, they still fall asleep out of exhaustion if they are truly crying.

That said, I do let Chloe fuss a little, make some noise, etc etc, but if she truly cries, I don't leave her there. She needs to learn to trust in me, which is the major task of the entire first year, according to these psychologists.

The sensorimotor stage in a child is from birth to approximately two years. During this stage, a child has relatively little competence in representing the environment using images, language, or symbols. An infant has no awareness of objects or people that are not immediately present at a given moment. Piaget called this a lack of object permanence. Object permanence is the awareness that objects and people continue to exist even if they are out of sight. In infants, when a person hides, the infant has no knowledge that they are just out of sight. According to Piaget, this person or object that has disappeared is gone forever to the infant.
http://mi.essortment.com/jeanpiagettheo_rnrn.htm

In fact, separation anxiety peaks at around this age! Per Dr. Green's website:

They understand about people leaving before they learn about people returning. They can tell from your actions that you are about to leave. Anxiety begins to build even before you leave.

They can’t tell from your actions that you are about to return. They have no idea when – or even if – you will come back. And they miss you intensely. For them, each separation seems endless.

Dropping a screaming child at day care tugs at parents' hearts. Much nighttime screaming is an expression of separation anxiety. Sleep is a scary separation.

(snip)

The first peak of separation anxiety usually takes place in the second half of the first year, and lasts for about 2 to 4 months, though there is great variability in this.
http://www.drgreene.com/21_1183.html

What this says to me is that prior to the development of object permanence, the infant remains with the sense that something is lost but they can't cognitively objectify what it is, and they feel lost. When object permanence begins to develop, they experience the loss, and have no sense of the return, an even scarier time for the infant.

Erikson also referred to infancy as the Oral Sensory Stage (as anyone might who watches a baby put everything in her mouth) where the major emphasis is on the mother's positive and loving care for the child, with a big emphasis on visual contact and touch. If we pass successfully through this period of life, we will learn to trust that life is basically okay and have basic confidence in the future. If we fail to experience trust and are constantly frustrated because our needs are not met, we may end up with a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness and a mistrust of the world in general.
http://www.learningplaceonline.com/stages/organize/Erikson.htm

What this says to me is that my infant needs to successfully pass through this first year learning that I, and the rest of her world, are trustable. She will pass through the object permanence phase, and if I teach her that I will not leave her to cry alone at night, and can be trusted to return, it will be a smoother transition.

Per Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

THE SAFETY NEEDS

If the physiological needs are relatively well gratified, there then emerges a new set of needs, which we may categorize roughly as the safety needs (security; stability; dependency; protection; freedom from fear, from anxiety and chaos; need for structure, order, law, limits; strength in the protector; and so on). All that has been said to the physiological needs is equally true, although in less degree, of these desires. The organism may equally well be wholly dominated by them. They may serve as the almost exclusive organizers of behavior, recruiting all the capacities of the organism in their service, and we may then fairly describe the whole organism as a safety-seeking mechanism. Again we may say of the receptors, the effectors, of the intellect, and of the other capacities that they are primarily safety-seeking tools. Again, as in the hungry man, we find that the dominating goal is a strong determinant not only of his current world outlook and philosophy but also of his philosophy of the future and of values. Practically everything looks less important than safety and protection (even sometimes the physiological needs, which, being satisfied, are now underestimated). A man in this state, if it is extreme enough and chronic enough, may be characterized as living almost for safety alone.

Although in this chapter we are interested primarily in the needs of the adult, we can approach an understanding of his safety needs perhaps more efficiently by observation of infants and children, in whom these needs are much more simple and obvious. One reason for the clearer appearance of the threat or danger reaction in infants is that they do not inhibit this reaction at all, whereas adults in our society have been taught to inhibit it at all costs. Thus even when adults do feel their safety to be threatened, we may not be able to see this on the surface. Infants will react in a total fashion and as if they were endangered, if they are disturbed or dropped suddenly, startled by loud noises, flashing light, or other unusual sensory stimulation, by rough handling, by general loss of support in the mother's arms, or by inadequate support
http://www.xenodochy.org/ex/lists/maslow.html

What this says to me is that my infant, left alone to experience what could be "unusual sensory stimulation", or the loss of support of my arms, she will ultimately turn to the flight or fight stress response. Which involves:

This response to anything which is perceived as a threat, or potential threat begins when certain primitive parts of the brain send a message to the adrenal glands. These begin a process involving a number of hormones including adrenaline, whose purpose is to prepare the body for vigorous emergency action. The main changes that follow are below.

Non-essential processes are immediately switched off. In particular, if the body is digesting food, that is stopped immediately, and people notice a feeling of churning of 'butterflies' in the stomach, or feeling nauseous or sick. A number of other changes follow, to make the muscles as strong as possible.

Note: This, in an infant who has cried to exhaustion, will also allow for slower gastric emptying, and therefore the decreased hunger drive over a longer period of time - also accounting for how long they might sleep after an episode of CIO.

The liver releases glucose into the bloodstream. Fats are released into the bloodstream from the fat stores in the body. These are fuel for the muscles, so oxygen is needed to burn them - so the breathing increases, and those under stress may notice feeling breathless.

Having Fuel and oxygen in the bloodstream, the body needs to get it to the muscles as soon as possible - (remember, the body thinks this is a life or death emergency). So to pump the blood quickly, the heart begins beating far faster - and some people notice palpitations. Blood pressure rises, and some people notice feeling hot or cold - even breaking into a sweat, as the body seeks to dissipate the heat that will be generated by the vigorous muscular activity for which the body is preparing.

Becoming ready for instant action, muscle tension increases, and a person may notice shaking, or becoming restless - fidgeting. If the pattern is continued for long enough, chronic headaches or backache may result.
http://www.david.uk-therapist.com/fightflight.html

My conclusion? CIO is not for my family based on the above research, especially not at six months. However, I do agree that simply making noise doesn't necessarily equate crying it out, and that some of the above consitutes extremes and some of the methods discourage reaching those extremes. I continue to assert that I will not allow my daughter to reach the point of crying as part of a "sleep training" process.

Disclaimer: Of course, I wouldn't fault any other parent their choice to let their baby CIO, sometimes a baby's sleep pattern can be detrimental to the functioning of the family, and I would even go so far as to say should be used as a last resort. Thankfully we aren't there.

The concept of a birthday party, to me, seems pretty simple. Get a bunch of kids together, provide games/activities (a park or a pool seems pretty perfect to me), have some food and cake, and be done with it.

Not anymore. I'm living in a dreamworld if I think that the party for my soon-to-be six year old can be that simple.

Phoebe has attended five or six birthday parties for classmates and old friends this year, and each one seems to be more elaborate than the last. There was the one with the bounce house. Then there was the one with the bounce house AND the magician AND the face painting princess. Next came the one at the bounce house party-place, for lack of a better term (FULL of bounce houses). Then came the nail salon. Finally, most recently, at Pebble Beach's Equestrian Center. Yes, THE Pebble Beach, of golf-course fame, along Monterey Peninsula's 17 mile drive. A pony party, how can I live up to this?!?

I can't. I just can't.

Gotta love Phoebe, though, on the way home she says "Mommy, I want a Cabbage Patch Party in the park". Ahhhhhh, thank goodness!

After musing on it for a while, even posting about it on another forum, I've figured out why the kids are kicking my arse with their nighttime wakings.

With the past babies, there were just fewer children to compound the problem. Phoebe was a tough sleeper as a baby, but she was my only one. I could nap, I could sleep between HER wakings without another one waking up.

Piper was a good sleeper, but even when she woke, Phoebe was such a solid sleeper that she didn't wake anyway.

Now, with Chloe, Piper is having some nightwakings, and even Phoebe is having a couple of tougher nights. Chloe went from sleeping through the night to getting sick, and that has caused for some bad nights in the last week and a half.

Prior to Chloe's birth, I also considered myself "tough enough" on lack of sleep, considering I worked night shifts, and functioned on very little sleep as needed.

So why was this so hard???

Now I get it. With the night shifts, I knew that I was going to be up, and I could mentally prepare myself accordingly. I also could turn around the next night and sleep 10 hours straight to recover. And I did recover. With these nights, I don't know how long I get between wakings... and I'm awakened mid-cycle, and the kids are tag-teaming me. So I might catch 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. I had one glorious night where I got 4 hours straight. One. Other than that the longest stretch I've had has been two hours.

I'm not complaining, strangely. My husband might think I am, because I usually tell him just how little sleep I got, but it's more so he understands why I am the way I am that morning - and maybe for just a little sympathy.

be very, very, very afraid.

I just hopped around on the links on MySpace.com, as we have a good young friend who has a weblog there. He's also a cyclist, and I found myself going through a few "friends" links (not just his, but friends of friends and the like) until I came across the page of a young woman track racer of whom I know. I don't know her personally, but in junior track cycling circles, her name is well known.

My eyes grew bigger as I witnessed the progression of the download... a dozen or so pictures of this woman, some with friends, some just her by herself - perfecting what I thought was a Christina Aguilera look, and Phil thought was a Paris Hilton stance. Of those with others, most of them were guys. She was almost always in high heels (when not in cycling shoes but not precluding cycling clothes), and was often scantily clad.

Some further investigation of the MySpace teen clientele demonstrated to me that I was already out of touch with the generation halfway behind me, and led me to fear what my own daughter's might embark upon as teenagers.

Strange to me, this site was actually a demonstration of a "good girl". This young woman is a senior in high school, and from what I understand, does well. She has a sport, a job, and isn't into drugs or stealing, (although I wouldn't be surprised at all about sex), she has a healthy self-esteem (as evidenced on the website), and is clearly well-liked.

*sigh* This was the moment our parents warned us about when we were teenagers, isn't it?