on being right...

My baby is screaming bloody murder right now, for no apparent reason. He is supposed to be sleeping, but he is not. He also only took an hour and a half nap today instead of the normal 3 hour one. I think he is exhausted and therefor beside himself.

Something you should know about my child is that he is not one to be coddled or snuggled. He does not want help being put to sleep but rather to be left alone. This is great on a normal night but on those off nights when he has trouble sleeping it is not, because he thinks that he wants help getting to sleep and yet he REFUSES to let you at the same time. It can be very confusing and aggravating.

This is how it usually goes. You hear the child scream so your natural instinct is to run into the room and snatch him from his bed. This will (and has many times) turned out badly. Because he then thinks that you are there to stay... forever, even though he really needs you to leave so he can get to sleep, and he SCREAMS when you try and sneak out after attempting and failing to help him sleep. Confusing...yes. Frustrating...yes! Especially at 3am.

So what to do? Well you let him cry for a minute and usually he goes right back to sleep. If that doesn't work you go in make sure nothing is wrong give him his binkie and say "go to sleep" and leave. This will work only if done properly and quickly. It is all business, you DO NOT pick him up or pat his back or give any indication of staying. He occasionally will let out a cry in protest when you exit and you wait 5 min (watch a clock and make sure it 5 because 1 minute can seem like 10 when you are listening to your baby scream). GO back in repeat the above and leave. In the early days of this method you double the time you wait before going back in until the child falls asleep on their own. Usually we don't go in more than twice. It works like a charm. Except when you don't follow it precisely.

We put our child to sleep at 8:20. At 9:00 he started screaming. He cried for a little while and then my husband said he would go in. I repeated the above rules to him because he is known to cheat. He went in and when he left the screaming began again. He can downstairs but almost immediately turned to go back up. I told him to not go back in, he had just barely left, I told him it would go badly if he went back in and if he tried to put him to sleep it would only get worse. But he didn't listen. At 9:05 he entered the baby's room all was quiet until 9:15 when my husband decided that it wasn't working and was tired of trying. The above bloody murder screaming then ensued. As my husband came back downstairs he seemed tensed for the lecture he was sure to receive from me about how I was right wasn't I. But I am tired and not wanting to start a fight I held my tongue. At 9:25 (with no one in the room) there was silence.

I am being a good wife and not rubbing it in but just for the record...

 I was right.

on temper tantrums...

I am getting tired of these. I mean REALLY must we freak out over every little thing?! Especially out in public. Does my child honestly enjoy watching his mothers face turn 50 shades of red and start sweating profusely as I am attempting to wrestle the child back into the shopping cart that I am trying to keep moving through the store to finish my errands so I can go home and crawl under a table and die from shame and embarassment.

I have been reading up on the toddler years to try and find some reason strike that reasons got nothing to do with this. There is no reason it just is. Well then, I have been trying to understand it more to possibly have chance of living through it. And actually after reading I was really on the road to handling it fairly well.

First, I learned that a child in the midst of a full blown tantrum is not in the mood to be reasoned, bargined, or bribed into cooperation. They are so beside themselves that no matter what you say (aside from giving them what they want in the first place) they don't want to hear it.  Here in lies our first problem, I have a very strong willed child. He knows what he wants and cannot be distracted from it. Unfortunately for him he has a strong willed mother, who was a nanny for many years and has never given into a screaming child and does not plan on changing that anytime soon.

My plan for dealing with this was to find a place away from people and just let him cry out his frustrations until he was done and ready to listen to reason. And it actually worked pretty well because 1. I was away from people so my child was not bothering anyone as he sorted through his problem 2. I didn't get upset with him as I have before while trying to talk him out of the inevitable tantrum, I just let him be mad and get it off his chest 3. He didn't get mine and an enire store full of people's attention which only fuels a tantrum and 4. Once he was done we could go on with life.

Second, children like mine do not handle change well. Part of his independence is that he doesn't want to be forced into doing things. Like getting his diaper changed. For a couple months he would completely lose it when we changed his diaper, we would have to just pin him down to get it done.

But now we explain to him what is going to happen and what will happen next so he knows what to expect and doesn't feel forced into it. He has done so much better once we started explaining it to him instead of treating him like a baby. Now we can say "can you go get mommy a diaper and lay down?" and he will, just like that.

Third, active children such as mine sometimes get overwhelmed and overtired which leads to the tantrum. My little guy is not an observer but a doer (is that a word?) Meaning he will not just sit back and watch things happen he wants to be involved. We have cousins that live close by and whenever we are with them he is great and loving life for about 2 hours and then he melts down. And I have determined from my readings that it is because he is so excited and active and involved that at some point he just hits a wall, and by nature he won't just sit down and rest and watch for a while. SO he loses it.

How we deal with this? Well 12 hours of sleep a night plus one 3 hour nap helps. (Don't be jealous it is my gift for dealing with a wild child everyday.) And when we notice a meltdown starting to form we take him away from the situation to let him rest and have a calm moment.

With all these things in mind you would think that I had things under control. And then today happened.

I had no motivation to leave my house this morning, I beleive it was a message from above that no good would come out of trying to run errands but we were running dangerously low on toilet paper. No TP + Pregnant bladder = trouble. So off to target I went. And I started by explaining to the child "We just have to go into this one store and then we will go get lunch." And he seemed on board with me until we approached the building. Then the screaming started.

fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or flight...

but we REALLY needed toilet paper so I pushed on figuring that I would find something in the store to amuse him. I was wrong. The screaming intensified. I got some of the dirtiest looks of my life from every person I passed. All the sympathetic mothers must have heeded the warnings this morning and just stayed home. I soon had a cart full of things and a completly inconsolable child who was challenging my every effort to keep him in the cart. I reasoned, I barginned, I begged, I even threatened that he was going to be "IN BIG TROUBLE" (scary I know). But he didn't care. Instead he tried to claw his way out of the cart and so that he could grab onto me with his vice-like arms. Hence the opening to this post and my reason for wanting to die right there in the middle of the paper goods isle.

The morale of the story is this 1. listen to those little hints that perhaps this is not going to be your day and cut your losses and stay home 2. Stock up on toilet paper 3. Don't ever claim that you have life under control because life likes to prove you wrong 4. Never take a hungry, tired, crabby child to target.

on grandpa...

My grandfather is currently fighting for his life in a hospital room. He was admitting last week with pneumonia and last night suddenly took a turn for the worse. We almost lost him, actually we did for a few moments. He was not supposed to make it through the night but by some miracle he did.

Last night was one of the worst night of my life. I sat on a cold plastic chair in a tiny little waiting room watching my grandmother's heart break as she pleaded with the Lord to let her have just a little more time with her husband. At some point through the hours of sobbing and praying she asked the question "did he know?" Did he know how much I loved him, did he know that he means everything to me, did he know that he is the best thing that ever happened to me, did he really know. Did I tell him enough, did I show him enough, did he see through all the stupid things I have said over the years... It is a horrible question to have to ask yourself when you might never get the chance to make it right.

Of course grandpa knows that his doting wife adores him. That they are as much in love today as they were 60 years ago when they were married. And in this time of crisis that is something that she can hold on to, that he does know. I have had to ask this question once before in my life and unfortunately my answer was no, she did not know.

So my question to all of you is the same "Do they know?' Do your kids know how much you love them, does your husband know. Do you tell them evey day, every chance you get or do you just assume they know. Do your parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends know?  Or do you let other things get in the way of telling them.

don't let another day pass without letting them know, so you will never have to ask that question.

on things I think I need...

from tatertots and jello

in fact I think I need one of these for every season.

from tweet heart wall art

but first I need a little girl

Blue mason jars shown in The Pleated Poppy

just because I think they are cool

from Pottery Barn

but I can make it for a lot less than the $179 price tag

on surviving...

I am drinking ginger ale and feeling sick. I have stuck my child in front of yet another show so I can just sit in peace and be sick. That is the story of my life

Although I have to say ginger ale is amazing. I have never really had it before but my husband heard that ginger helps with nausea so he bought me the 24 pack. And it works, it's amazing.

This week my favorite things are ginger ale and Toy Story 2. They help me survive. Why Toy Story 2 and not the origional? the answer is simple...  Jesse. My child is OBSESSED with Jesse. His first crush at only 20 months old. I'm in deep trouble.

on questions with hard answers...

A couple weeks ago we were at dinner at someone's home (names will be omitted to protect the innocent) and there was an elderly women there who has known our family for a very long time. In the course of the evening the festivities were all of a sudden interupted by my child's scream. My husband carried the struggling child into the room annoncing that he had just hit the elderly women across the face and had earned himself a timeout.

On our way home that night my husband and I were discussing the event and surprisingly we had conflicting views about punishing our child for his actions. Now thats not saying that I encourage my child to hit elderly women across the face. But I could see his point in the matter. Let me explain...

Everytime that we see this women, immediately upon us entering the house she tries desperately to get Jackson to hug, kiss or let her hold him. I can understand this, she wants to interact with our adorable child, who can blame her. But the way she approaches it is a little forceful. And she has unfortunately caused him to anticipate her advances not in a positive way but rather by grabbing onto which ever parent is holding him with a death grib because, understandibly, he is a little unnerved by this women. Also he is a toddler with the independance that comes with it, and he does not warm up to people quickly and sometimes has very specific views of who he wants. That's just the stage of life that we are dealing with. On top of it all he doesn't sit still for anyone. So he doesn't want to be held and sit quietly in her lap, which is what she wants. So all in all we have conflicting intrests here.

What usually happens is that he won't go to her, won't kiss or hug her and as soon as we put him down he runs off to play with the other kids. Well, on this particular day, she was outside watching the kids play and trying to get one of them to come sit with her. Everytime my little guy ran passed she would ask him if he wanted to sit with her and he would reply "no" because sitting is the last thing my child ever wants to do. So on one of the passes he made by her she decided to take matters into her own hands and reached down and scooped him up. To which he replied "NO NO NO." When he was not released he besowed the above mentioned slap across her face.  

Now once again I do not think it was ok that he hit her, but let's look at it from his perspective for a minute. He is already wary of this women, he wants to run and play with the kids, she asked him if he wanted to came to her -he said "NO", she picked him up against his will anyways to which he said "NO", and when she wouldn't let him go he hit her. In a way it was just self defense. He was being forced to do something he was not comfortable with, his will was being ignored so he used the last option he had. Now you could say, "yes but he knew the women, and she wasn't trying to hurt him."

But isn't it also wrong to teach you children that they have to just take whatever is happening to them because they are little, to take away their right to decide what make them comfortable and makes them feel safe. That doesn't seem right either.

So what is the right answer here?

on being sad...

On friday I was sad.

I had my third long, hard, frusturating day in a row with my toddler followed by a dinner out that ended in yet another full blown public temper tantrum. My husband had met us at the resturant so I drove his car home and made him drive with the child. And I cried... the whole way home.

Sometimes this whole motherhood thing is just so overwhelming. You feel like you are about to lose that weak grasp that you have on your sanity. You feel like you have nothing more to give. Like even after you have given everything that you have... it's not enough and somehow you always come up short. You feel like you don't have enough time or energy to give your child, your husband and forget about yourself. That is so far at the bottom of the list, piled under loads of laundry and stacks of dishes.

Well all in all I was just overwhelmed and tired. So very tired. I am tired from chasing around my energetic little boy. I am tired from the countless temper tantrums that I have to deal with on a daily basis many of which take place in public where I have entire stores or resturants full of people glaring at me as if thinking "what kind of mother is she, why is her child so out of control, what a bratty kid, or why doesn't she just leave." All the while trying to wrestle a screaming flailing child away from whatever set him off, and trying to not have him kick me in the stomache because I am pretty sure that's not good for the baby. On that note, I am generally tired because I am pregnant and being tired is mandatory like fat ankles, and I am tired because I am already not sleeping well. I could go on... but it's a long list.

But what all of this added up to was a little emotional breakdown in the car. I felt like such a failure. And mostly I was scared. Scared because in a couple of months I will have two. And if having one was hard, what was it going to be like with two?!

 I arrived home, with puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks, to my little boy dancing around the room. When he saw my face he stopped and his little face scrunched with concern. My husband told him that I was sad because he had been screaming at me. With that my little guy climbed onto my lap and began stroking my cheek while babbling softly to me. He then sat next to me on the couch and laid my head on his shoulder and sat very still and quiet just holding me, like I have done with him so many times.  And I realized that I must be doing something right because I have this sweet caring little boy who has recieved comfort and love when he was sad and he knew exactly how to comfort me. It was a very sweet moment.