photo by Jane Bell Goldstein
One Meatball or Two?
by Ralph Berets
One meatball or two? That was the question. An easy choice you may think, but on this day, a little more than a year after we arrived to help our daughter with her first baby, this question led to a most disturbing confrontation.
There was nothing unusual about this particular afternoon’s routine until J came home from a difficult day at the office and the usual traffic issues associated with living in the Washington, D.C. area. The commute from downtown D.C. to J’s house in Arlington is less than four miles, but on a bad traffic day, it can take as long as 40 minutes, and that day it had. J had never wanted to live in the D.C. area, but since her husband no longer had his New York law job, which he hadn’t liked anyway, he decided to go to Georgetown University to acquire another degree, a Master’s in Business Administration.
J and D had never realistically considered how to raise a child together. J had never been interested in kids, while D wanted a houseful, even though taking care of them was not on his radar screen for more than an hour a day. Apparently, he assumed that the baby would take care of himself and play happily if given enough toys, and that may have been a good assumption since their house is full of toys.
My wife and I had rearranged our lives so we could move back east and help take care of J’s baby, but the transition from a life of retirement in California to a suburbanite existence on the East Coast was much more difficult than we anticipated. At this stage of life, I can barely get my body to do strenuous work for more than two hours without feeling the need for a nap, so no matter how much I wanted to fulfill the commitment I had made, twelve-hour babysitting chores clearly weren’t feasible. But the issue of how much time we would babysit was resolved when J and D enrolled A in daycare. They would drop him off at daycare in the morning and we would pick him up again around 5:00 in the afternoon, thus giving us approximately two hours a day to interact with him.
A was anything but a passive baby. He was cute, active, seemed bright, athletic and both daring and easily scared. Whatever he was determined to do, he would attempt over and over again, even if he failed consistently. Like many infants, he had no sense that there were dangers in his world. We spent a lot of time teaching him the consequences of his actions, such as not leaving his fingers in the doors when he closed them. He was making progress with that and also at implementing our warnings about the potential dangers of adventurous behaviors, such as climbing the stairs before learning how to turn around so he could get back down. It took a lot of handwringing and coercion for us to persuade D that it was dangerous to leave the stairways (there were three in the house) unguarded while A was crawling around.
From birth, A has been fascinating to observe and admire. He watches everything very closely, as if he is a scientist trying to figure out how things work. He pays assiduous attention to everything I do and attempts to copy me.
Even during his first months of life, he was charmed by music and listened to it attentively. Once he was able to pick the toys he wanted to play with, he’d select those that played music first and hardly ever allowed them to go silent. When he heard a jazzy rhythm, he’d shake his hips as if he were dancing. It is truly a joy to watch him discover what his world is all about and how he can interact with it.
At a very early stage of his development, A knew that he was special and would be able to control his surroundings. When he wasn’t even six months old, he liked to point his index finger in the direction of the ceiling, which we interpreted to mean he wanted the lights or fan turned on. Consequently, whenever he pointed his finger upwards, he expected that to happen. He was most disappointed when he made his first trip to Safeway, pointed up, but nothing happened. He pointed again; still nothing. How could we explain to him that his magic finger only worked in his house and not out in the world? We tried to explain that in relation to the sun as well, but still aren’t sure he understands the distinction. So he just keeps pointing and feeling disappointed when the light, the fan and even the sun don’t obey him.
When we bring A home every day, our first job is to shut off the alarm system, which is hardly routine, since it seems to have its own criteria for what constitutes a punched-in number. On several occasions, the system has automatically called the police, even though I tried valiantly to punch in the right code within the specified amount of time. When the alarm goes off, A holds his ears and cries furiously until it is turned off.
Once A became mobile, my wife and I would look around their house to make sure no doors were open and no dangerous chemicals were within his reach. We would walk or sometimes even crawl around to make sure that no one had carelessly left something lying around that A might put in his mouth, which is where everything goes at this stage of his life. To complicate things, even before the meatballs were introduced, on that particular day, the cleaning ladies had left telltale signs of their presence behind: Lights were on outside; cabinets with cleaning materials were left open; a glass was at the top of the stairs; a rag was in the disposal. So there was no doubt that when J came home and found all of that, she would be furious.
On a typical day, by 6:00 p.m. we would try to find something to feed A. It used to be easy; I made his formula and he was happy. But now that he was one, he was not allowed to drink formula until he was ready for bed. He had to eat regular food, and drink whole milk and water. But he was somewhat resistant to these changes. After first willingly eating whatever was placed on his tray, he became unpredictable about what he liked and disliked. Most of the time, scrambled eggs were good. Sometimes he liked chicken, but only with certain spices. Some days we could find nothing in our daughter’s house to feed him, so we brought food from our house that we knew he’d like, such as blueberries or goat cheese, or whatever I had prepared for our dinner that night.
According to the pattern worked out over time, we would call J at work every day and read her the daily report from A’s playgroup, outlining his feeding, napping and pooping schedules. That day when I called her, she told me she had bought some meatballs for A. She suggested two meatballs would be a good portion, but since A had never eaten these meatballs, I only made one. When I discovered that he liked them, I made another.
This decision unfortunately set the world aflutter. After she got home and saw the condition of the house and I explained about the meatballs, J said, “I told you to make him two meatballs. Why do you always have to argue with me? If you want to take care of A, you have to abide by my rules, not yours.”
I countered by saying, “I was not challenging your rules. I was only trying to determine if he liked the meatballs, and then made him another, which he also ate.”
Then J looked at the day’s report from the daycare and got angry again, this time about the number of bottles A drank. “I told them to cut back on his formula and they are still giving him four bottles of formula during the day. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me. I am his mother.” It turned out the four bottles were milk and not formula, but she didn’t discover that until several days later.
Subsequent to the argument about meatballs, the discussion deteriorated into whether we were supportive of changing his day care, taking away his formula, treating his inability to poo in a way that she approved of, etc. Everything seemed to be fair game because I had challenged her on how many meatballs were appropriate. How was it possible that such a ridiculous issue could have gotten so out of hand that my wife and I were questioning why we left California to help care for A? Emails, texts and phone calls went back and forth debating the legitimacy of J’s expectations and whether or not we, the grandparent part-time caregivers, should have any say-so in making these determinations.
I have truly loved taking care of A and observing his development, and would have been disappointed to have to give that up. He is now at the stage where he wants to do everything himself, for example even strapping himself into his car seat, and gets very angry and frustrated when he is thwarted. A few weeks ago he could only walk when holding onto things, but now that he has mastered this, he proudly walks in circles around the house’s main floor as much as he can. It’s been fifty years since we had our first child and it’s amazing how much we seem to have forgotten about the process of raising kids, and J takes advantage of every opportunity by reminding us that we are old and out of step with how kids are raised these days. This is probably true, but I’m not convinced that the current methods are necessarily better than what we were taught by Drs. Spock and Brazelton.
It’s been over two months since I first wrote this. We are now back in our daughter’s good graces and she actually consults us about decisions she needs to make about A’s feeding, napping and pooping schedules. My wife is very good at doing research on these topics. She summarizes the sometimes contradictory material and then sends it to J, who reads it (sometimes discussing it with us) and then informs us of her decisions. As a parent of three kids, I never had the leisure to truly observe the developmental changes that A has demonstrated as he is growing from one stage to the next. The debate has recently shifted to one or two naps, and when they should occur, and my response is, I am definitely staying out of that argument.
There was nothing unusual about this particular afternoon’s routine until J came home from a difficult day at the office and the usual traffic issues associated with living in the Washington, D.C. area. The commute from downtown D.C. to J’s house in Arlington is less than four miles, but on a bad traffic day, it can take as long as 40 minutes, and that day it had. J had never wanted to live in the D.C. area, but since her husband no longer had his New York law job, which he hadn’t liked anyway, he decided to go to Georgetown University to acquire another degree, a Master’s in Business Administration.
J and D had never realistically considered how to raise a child together. J had never been interested in kids, while D wanted a houseful, even though taking care of them was not on his radar screen for more than an hour a day. Apparently, he assumed that the baby would take care of himself and play happily if given enough toys, and that may have been a good assumption since their house is full of toys.
My wife and I had rearranged our lives so we could move back east and help take care of J’s baby, but the transition from a life of retirement in California to a suburbanite existence on the East Coast was much more difficult than we anticipated. At this stage of life, I can barely get my body to do strenuous work for more than two hours without feeling the need for a nap, so no matter how much I wanted to fulfill the commitment I had made, twelve-hour babysitting chores clearly weren’t feasible. But the issue of how much time we would babysit was resolved when J and D enrolled A in daycare. They would drop him off at daycare in the morning and we would pick him up again around 5:00 in the afternoon, thus giving us approximately two hours a day to interact with him.
A was anything but a passive baby. He was cute, active, seemed bright, athletic and both daring and easily scared. Whatever he was determined to do, he would attempt over and over again, even if he failed consistently. Like many infants, he had no sense that there were dangers in his world. We spent a lot of time teaching him the consequences of his actions, such as not leaving his fingers in the doors when he closed them. He was making progress with that and also at implementing our warnings about the potential dangers of adventurous behaviors, such as climbing the stairs before learning how to turn around so he could get back down. It took a lot of handwringing and coercion for us to persuade D that it was dangerous to leave the stairways (there were three in the house) unguarded while A was crawling around.
From birth, A has been fascinating to observe and admire. He watches everything very closely, as if he is a scientist trying to figure out how things work. He pays assiduous attention to everything I do and attempts to copy me.
Even during his first months of life, he was charmed by music and listened to it attentively. Once he was able to pick the toys he wanted to play with, he’d select those that played music first and hardly ever allowed them to go silent. When he heard a jazzy rhythm, he’d shake his hips as if he were dancing. It is truly a joy to watch him discover what his world is all about and how he can interact with it.
At a very early stage of his development, A knew that he was special and would be able to control his surroundings. When he wasn’t even six months old, he liked to point his index finger in the direction of the ceiling, which we interpreted to mean he wanted the lights or fan turned on. Consequently, whenever he pointed his finger upwards, he expected that to happen. He was most disappointed when he made his first trip to Safeway, pointed up, but nothing happened. He pointed again; still nothing. How could we explain to him that his magic finger only worked in his house and not out in the world? We tried to explain that in relation to the sun as well, but still aren’t sure he understands the distinction. So he just keeps pointing and feeling disappointed when the light, the fan and even the sun don’t obey him.
When we bring A home every day, our first job is to shut off the alarm system, which is hardly routine, since it seems to have its own criteria for what constitutes a punched-in number. On several occasions, the system has automatically called the police, even though I tried valiantly to punch in the right code within the specified amount of time. When the alarm goes off, A holds his ears and cries furiously until it is turned off.
Once A became mobile, my wife and I would look around their house to make sure no doors were open and no dangerous chemicals were within his reach. We would walk or sometimes even crawl around to make sure that no one had carelessly left something lying around that A might put in his mouth, which is where everything goes at this stage of his life. To complicate things, even before the meatballs were introduced, on that particular day, the cleaning ladies had left telltale signs of their presence behind: Lights were on outside; cabinets with cleaning materials were left open; a glass was at the top of the stairs; a rag was in the disposal. So there was no doubt that when J came home and found all of that, she would be furious.
On a typical day, by 6:00 p.m. we would try to find something to feed A. It used to be easy; I made his formula and he was happy. But now that he was one, he was not allowed to drink formula until he was ready for bed. He had to eat regular food, and drink whole milk and water. But he was somewhat resistant to these changes. After first willingly eating whatever was placed on his tray, he became unpredictable about what he liked and disliked. Most of the time, scrambled eggs were good. Sometimes he liked chicken, but only with certain spices. Some days we could find nothing in our daughter’s house to feed him, so we brought food from our house that we knew he’d like, such as blueberries or goat cheese, or whatever I had prepared for our dinner that night.
According to the pattern worked out over time, we would call J at work every day and read her the daily report from A’s playgroup, outlining his feeding, napping and pooping schedules. That day when I called her, she told me she had bought some meatballs for A. She suggested two meatballs would be a good portion, but since A had never eaten these meatballs, I only made one. When I discovered that he liked them, I made another.
This decision unfortunately set the world aflutter. After she got home and saw the condition of the house and I explained about the meatballs, J said, “I told you to make him two meatballs. Why do you always have to argue with me? If you want to take care of A, you have to abide by my rules, not yours.”
I countered by saying, “I was not challenging your rules. I was only trying to determine if he liked the meatballs, and then made him another, which he also ate.”
Then J looked at the day’s report from the daycare and got angry again, this time about the number of bottles A drank. “I told them to cut back on his formula and they are still giving him four bottles of formula during the day. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me. I am his mother.” It turned out the four bottles were milk and not formula, but she didn’t discover that until several days later.
Subsequent to the argument about meatballs, the discussion deteriorated into whether we were supportive of changing his day care, taking away his formula, treating his inability to poo in a way that she approved of, etc. Everything seemed to be fair game because I had challenged her on how many meatballs were appropriate. How was it possible that such a ridiculous issue could have gotten so out of hand that my wife and I were questioning why we left California to help care for A? Emails, texts and phone calls went back and forth debating the legitimacy of J’s expectations and whether or not we, the grandparent part-time caregivers, should have any say-so in making these determinations.
I have truly loved taking care of A and observing his development, and would have been disappointed to have to give that up. He is now at the stage where he wants to do everything himself, for example even strapping himself into his car seat, and gets very angry and frustrated when he is thwarted. A few weeks ago he could only walk when holding onto things, but now that he has mastered this, he proudly walks in circles around the house’s main floor as much as he can. It’s been fifty years since we had our first child and it’s amazing how much we seem to have forgotten about the process of raising kids, and J takes advantage of every opportunity by reminding us that we are old and out of step with how kids are raised these days. This is probably true, but I’m not convinced that the current methods are necessarily better than what we were taught by Drs. Spock and Brazelton.
It’s been over two months since I first wrote this. We are now back in our daughter’s good graces and she actually consults us about decisions she needs to make about A’s feeding, napping and pooping schedules. My wife is very good at doing research on these topics. She summarizes the sometimes contradictory material and then sends it to J, who reads it (sometimes discussing it with us) and then informs us of her decisions. As a parent of three kids, I never had the leisure to truly observe the developmental changes that A has demonstrated as he is growing from one stage to the next. The debate has recently shifted to one or two naps, and when they should occur, and my response is, I am definitely staying out of that argument.