Vicki Iovine - The Girlfriends’ Guide to Toddlers

Table of Contents

Invaluable ... [a] funny, honest new volume.L.A. Parent

If humor is the best medicine, Vicki Iovine has all the tonic a new mother should need. Her information comes from experience and her humor from the heart. An invaluable dialogue with a girlfriend whos been there, and got the most from her adventure.Rocky Mountain News

A chatty, candid, laugh-out-loud primer for unseasoned moms-to-be. People

Iovine and her gaggle of Girlfriends are ready with reassuring and frequently irreverent advice.Newsweek

ALSO BY VICKI IOVINE

A PERIGEE BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

Copyright 1999 by Vicki Iovine

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

PERIGEE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PRINTING HISTORY
First Perigee trade paperback edition / February 1999

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Iovine, Vicki.
The girlfriends guide to toddlers : a survival manual to the terrible twos (and ones and
threes) from the first step, the first potty and the first word (no) to the last blankie / Vicki
Iovine.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-440-67402-0

1. ToddlersCarePopular works. 2. Child rearingPopular works. 3. Motherhood
Popular works. 4. Mother and infantPopular works. I. Title.
RJ61.I67 1999
649.1dc21 98-45260
CIP

My dad died this year. So did Dr. Benjamin Spock. From my point of view, the world lost two exceptional men, each with his own brand of uncommon wisdom about children. I dont know if it was just coincidence that there was always a copy of Baby and Child Care in our house while I was growing up, or if my own father learned his coolheaded parenting style from Dr. Spocks classic. Either way, my dad seemed to have an innate faith that if he showed up and loved us and set a few unwavering rules, we kids would turn out pretty much all right. He started with the belief that most of what we children did was normal kid behavior, nothing more exotic or troublesome than that. (Now that you are a parent yourself, you can see the value of that kind of calm and steady-in-the-saddle attitude.) Then he decided which normal kid behavior would be nipped in the bud by identifying what was a nuisance to him, my mother or other adults. I cant recall a time when he wavered in his conviction that parents knew more than kids and therefore were the bosses. But he still treated my brother and me as though we were his intellectual equals. Even when I was a teenager and clearly deranged on that cocktail of adolescent hormones, he would talk to me as if I were a healthy, intelligent quasi-adult. Somehow he trusted that this normal behavior, too, would pass and that his real daughter would return to him. Not only did I return, I clung to him like glue.

Now that I am a mother several times over, I can really appreciate how helpful it was to have someone tell me, often several times a day, that I was not only up to the job, but might actually be pretty good at it. My dad was the king of Dont worry, hell grow out of it. He had tremendous faith in Mother Natures plan of allowing young and inexperienced people to be entrusted with the care of infants. The divine plan provided for both parents and children to grow up and learn together, in the unique way that suited their particular family. Its no mistake that we parents are so clueless; its just Natures way of making sure we customize our brand of parenting for each individual child.

I wept the first time I read Dr. Spocks line You probably already know more about being a parent than you think you do, I was so desperate to believe him and to prove him right. I, along with millions of other bleary-eyed, overworked and under-rested new mommies just gave it up to Dr. Spock. If he said that everything was going to be fine, then it was. There are many times in your parenting life where you work yourself into a dither because youve consulted so many authorities about some problem like potty training or thumb sucking that you are paralyzed by your competing options and the overriding fear that youll pick the wrong thing. This is the time for you to kneel and be knighted by the spirit of Dr. Spock and arise as The Mother. You are the one who knows your baby, you are the one who is taking responsibility for your babys life and you are the one who will smite herself with her own sword if you fail in your loving duty to your baby. It is YOU, the Mother, who will choose the correct path and will prevail!

Dr. Spock, on behalf of the baby boomers and our own babies, thank you for your wisdom. Dad, on behalf of your own kids and your kids kids, thank you for always believing and always loving. I miss you every single day of my life.

Chris Pepe, its a good thing youre Catholic, because Im thinking of trying to get you considered for sainthood (or at least beatified). I am gigantically grateful for your patience and guidance throughout what must have seemed the slowest year of your life. I am even more grateful for your darling Eva, who so graciously went through toddlerhood just when we needed her inspiration.