Another Thanksgiving has been partied away!
We had a pretty manageable amount of family gathering planned for Thanksgiving this year, so I upped it and decided to spend the weekend before in Rockford. It was really good to be back - hadn't been there since summer and it felt really good to be home again. It was of course very cold and windy, so the girls didn't want to be outside at all, but I got Emily out for a little bit. She's still afraid of cows, which is good, except she goes a little overboard. I NEVER have her on the same side of a fence as a cow, but if she sees them 50 feet away but look at her, she's terrified. It's a bit over the top. I stayed up too late chatting, as usual, and the kids slept terribly but that's par for the course at any grandparents house. I'm doing better about not worrying about it, because it's just going to suck, no matter what.
Pretty much the same in Barnum - a very nice family visit with fantastic food, relaxing agenda, and tremendously overtired kids. It's so frustrating, even though they are able to push through a day being overtired and have a good time while they're there, they make us pay later. Audrey prefers to get a catnap and then be too rested to sleep at night, while Emily is a CRAB the following day, laying on the floor, kicking Audrey and whining. I guess I should be thankful they can keep it together for the visit, right?
We also spent a day in Ames with my family, on the way back from Barnum, essentially (after a stop in Farnhamville to meet a very sweet little 18-month-old!). Even though I stayed up much later than I should have, it was totally worth it - SO fun! My family is a pretty weird, and it was so refreshing for me! We were doing puzzles and found a way to do competitive puzzling. I don't know when I've laughed harder. I totally needed that, after dealing with my kids whining and fussing and screaming and crying so much.
It just seems like there's an awful lot of that lately. I've been trying to do some reading to see if there are things I should be doing differently with my kids. I have gotten the impression that they're pretty capable kids, smart, and I wondered if having gifted children changes how you need to parent and provide for them. This is the feedback I've gotten from my mom and my sister. As I'm reading about these other kids who learned to read at age 3, do multiplication by age 4, do 30-piece puzzles at age 2, it feels more and more like my kids are just good singers who are pains in the ass. Audrey is SO stubborn. She pitched a fit the other day because she wanted me to carry her upstairs on my back. It wasn't that I didn't let her, it's that I didn't stand up and walk 10 feet to where SHE was to let her onto my back. I had already crouched down and was at the foot of the stairs, and told her to run and hop onto my back, little monkey! Nope - 20 minutes of screaming her stupid head off. Emily spent 3 days in a row, crying for half an hour on the potty because I wouldn't go wipe her messy bottom - which I haven't done for at least 6 months but lately she's started up again trying to get me to do it for her again because she doesn't feel like washing her hands. What lazy, manipulative, stupid creatures!!! It's so irritating. Why did you learn all your letters but you still pee on the floor all the damn time? Why can you do addition and subtraction on your fingers but can't flush a toilet? Why did you decide to learn the names and sounds of all the different band instruments, but you can't possibly figure out that when you get in the car, the next step is ALWAYS to buckle your seat belt?!?
In the end, I am in no position to say where my kids rank with others. I have no idea if they're gifted or slow. I just know that they're incredibly annoying to me lately and I can't wait for Emily and Audrey to outgrow this miserable phase they're in. I can't ask for advice - everything is conflicting. Not sleeping? Make sure they're busy all day so they're good and tired at night. Or make sure they have rest time in their beds, even if they don't sleep, because they're overtired now and that's why they're not sleeping well. Not sleeping past 5AM? make sure they MUST stay in their beds until it's time to get up. or make sure they get up so they realize that getting up at 5AM sucks after all. Not eating anything? Just give them what they'll eat, so they grow; don't be a health junky. Or keep feeding them same plate of carrots for snack, dinner, breakfast, and nothing else until they eat it. Don't sweat the small stuff. Never give in to a tantrum - even a tantrum over something inanely stupid and small. Don't expect too much of your children. They can learn to put their own shoes away, so they start to learn some responsibility for themselves. Relax. You have to be vigilant, be their voice so they receive what they need from their school / other caretakers. Let them make their own mistakes (I'm just waiting for Audrey to faceplant with her hands in the pockets of her winter coat, because she absolutely insists on having her hands there. That's going to suck). But above all, protect them so they don't get hurt. In the end, I guess I should be doing everything I do differently. And then differently from that, too.
All this, and Clara is still getting up at least once each night... except when occasionally, she doesn't, and it's blissful except I wake up all engorged and the sheets are soaked so I get to do more laundry with all that extra energy. I'm so tired, hence the lack of blog entries, even though I'm just fighting each day, dreading all the screaming.
In the end, I know that it isn't this dire and dreary for me... for sure it isn't all the time. But sometimes it is, and I might as well whine. It's what the rest of the females in the house are doing. WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! My potato-turkey from preschool fell in the potty and I'm going to CRYYYYYYY!!!! That incident in particular actually was really, really funny, and it took a tremendous amount of convincing Emily to laugh with me. I finally got her, though. Light at the end of the tunnel, I hope.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Audrey is 3!
Another birthday is done and in the books. I think she had a great day, which is disappointing to me because I aim for the girls to view their birthdays as super special all the way through, and instead I think I threw too much at her in an attempt to make it comparable to Emily's. I didn't want her to feel shortchanged...
Anyway, Audrey woke up to the house decorated with purple balloons and purple streamers, much to her delight. I had in mind to give her a purple sparkley tiara to wear that said "Birthday Princess" on it, but it didn't arrive in the mail until after I got home. I also had to go to work on her birthday :( because of company-wide day-long meetings that occur once every 8 weeks. But I was home by 3:15 and we enjoyed the rest of the day. Audrey also got to go to her "library preschool" (storytime) with Amanda, who said that Audrey was really participating and enjoying it, all confident like she owns the place. Yeah!! Amanda also took the girls to McDonald's for lunch, and got them each a Happy Meal, "with a toy!!!"
After Emily got home, I discovered that Audrey had taken one of the basketball tickets that Travis ordered for a family outing this winter, and used Emily's scissors to shred it to tiny bits. I think that actually occurred several days if not weeks ago, and i just discovered it behind the piano that day. So, I had a fun puzzle to do, since of course she most finely chopped up the end with the barcode on it. When Travis got home, I wrapped presents, and she opened them, and Emily cried about them. "But I wanted a globe and a beanbag AND a hippity-hop!!" *sigh*. I had cleaned up the entire basement so she could have some space to use the hippity-hop, so we took her down there to try it out. I also got her a bike helmet since her current one is so old that it's probably not protective anymore. I turned out to be a good combination. Travis took lots of pictures of the girls, all wound up, and then we went out for supper at Panchero's, followed by ice cream at ColdStone.
Unfortunately, it was also bath night, and by the time it was Audrey's turn to brush her teeth, she was completely out of gas. She melted down into a little pile and howled. It was heartbreaking. I felt so terrible, because she won't let me help until she has completely burned herself out. I feel like she has to be completely broken, hit rock bottom, before she will let me do anything as simple as squeeze the toothpaste to the end of the tube for her. And then she'll let me do everything, so I washed her hair and helped her through the bath, dry off, get dressed, and snuggle into bed with her beautiful lips.
** Side note ** AUDREY IS DONE WITH BLANKETS!!! WOO HOOOOO!!!! We put chapstick on her one night, because her bottom lip was all chapped from having a wet blanket on it all night. Then I talked her up, telling her how beautiful her lips were, and I wanted a beautiful kiss before bed. Then she wanted her blanket, but I told her that her beautiful chapstick would rub off, and she wanted to sleep beautifully, like Sleeping Beauty. And she smiled, and went to sleep. No tears, no changing her mind, just beautiful lips and very smack-y bedtime kisses! She has asked for her blanekt a couple of times after that, but just during the day when she gets run-down (because she gets up at 6 AM for no reason and has given up naps!! I digress...). I just told her that her lips were healing, almost healed, so she should wait a few days. And she's stopped asking. She even saw them in the laundry, and I told her I was going to put them in Clara's room since they're baby blankets, and she agreed! I am SO RELIEVED. I don't even care that Clara either nurses to sleep or uses a pacifier to get to sleep. Whatever - I now know I am capable of getting a kid detached! I caught Emily sucking her thumb while watching Thomas on TV today, so she's got an orthodontic solution in her future. When she gets one loose tooth, I am not messing around. I'm scheduling her appointment with the orthodontist as soon as humanly possible at that point.
Sooo, back to the birthday! I actually had a more celebratory day with Audrey today, since I was home from work and Emily was at preschool. Clara took a 90-minute afternoon nap - twice her usual length! - so we had a lot of time to snuggle and do our nails and fold laundry, and sing songs. She was singing with her baby swing, which has Old MacDonald and Mary Had A Little Lamb on it, in two different keys. After one song is over, you have to go back and hit a button for it to play the other, and it just alternates. So she would start singing the other song before she'd go back to hit the button - and she'd have the right notes, for the new song in the new key. Now, that is the kind of thing that I can relate to, and just thrills me to see! What a great kid. If only I had a better way to help her when she starts spiraling downward, instead of just letting her go and waiting through her tantrum, then I would feel like an adequate parent for her. She is so amazing, and I love her so much! I hope I can be the mom that she deserves... I know that sometimes I am not. I'm afraid that I'm expecting her to be too much like Emily, and not realizing that just because some of the things she does are beyond her years, that she is only 3. How can she be so big and so little at the same time??
Anyway, Audrey woke up to the house decorated with purple balloons and purple streamers, much to her delight. I had in mind to give her a purple sparkley tiara to wear that said "Birthday Princess" on it, but it didn't arrive in the mail until after I got home. I also had to go to work on her birthday :( because of company-wide day-long meetings that occur once every 8 weeks. But I was home by 3:15 and we enjoyed the rest of the day. Audrey also got to go to her "library preschool" (storytime) with Amanda, who said that Audrey was really participating and enjoying it, all confident like she owns the place. Yeah!! Amanda also took the girls to McDonald's for lunch, and got them each a Happy Meal, "with a toy!!!"
After Emily got home, I discovered that Audrey had taken one of the basketball tickets that Travis ordered for a family outing this winter, and used Emily's scissors to shred it to tiny bits. I think that actually occurred several days if not weeks ago, and i just discovered it behind the piano that day. So, I had a fun puzzle to do, since of course she most finely chopped up the end with the barcode on it. When Travis got home, I wrapped presents, and she opened them, and Emily cried about them. "But I wanted a globe and a beanbag AND a hippity-hop!!" *sigh*. I had cleaned up the entire basement so she could have some space to use the hippity-hop, so we took her down there to try it out. I also got her a bike helmet since her current one is so old that it's probably not protective anymore. I turned out to be a good combination. Travis took lots of pictures of the girls, all wound up, and then we went out for supper at Panchero's, followed by ice cream at ColdStone.
Unfortunately, it was also bath night, and by the time it was Audrey's turn to brush her teeth, she was completely out of gas. She melted down into a little pile and howled. It was heartbreaking. I felt so terrible, because she won't let me help until she has completely burned herself out. I feel like she has to be completely broken, hit rock bottom, before she will let me do anything as simple as squeeze the toothpaste to the end of the tube for her. And then she'll let me do everything, so I washed her hair and helped her through the bath, dry off, get dressed, and snuggle into bed with her beautiful lips.
** Side note ** AUDREY IS DONE WITH BLANKETS!!! WOO HOOOOO!!!! We put chapstick on her one night, because her bottom lip was all chapped from having a wet blanket on it all night. Then I talked her up, telling her how beautiful her lips were, and I wanted a beautiful kiss before bed. Then she wanted her blanket, but I told her that her beautiful chapstick would rub off, and she wanted to sleep beautifully, like Sleeping Beauty. And she smiled, and went to sleep. No tears, no changing her mind, just beautiful lips and very smack-y bedtime kisses! She has asked for her blanekt a couple of times after that, but just during the day when she gets run-down (because she gets up at 6 AM for no reason and has given up naps!! I digress...). I just told her that her lips were healing, almost healed, so she should wait a few days. And she's stopped asking. She even saw them in the laundry, and I told her I was going to put them in Clara's room since they're baby blankets, and she agreed! I am SO RELIEVED. I don't even care that Clara either nurses to sleep or uses a pacifier to get to sleep. Whatever - I now know I am capable of getting a kid detached! I caught Emily sucking her thumb while watching Thomas on TV today, so she's got an orthodontic solution in her future. When she gets one loose tooth, I am not messing around. I'm scheduling her appointment with the orthodontist as soon as humanly possible at that point.
Sooo, back to the birthday! I actually had a more celebratory day with Audrey today, since I was home from work and Emily was at preschool. Clara took a 90-minute afternoon nap - twice her usual length! - so we had a lot of time to snuggle and do our nails and fold laundry, and sing songs. She was singing with her baby swing, which has Old MacDonald and Mary Had A Little Lamb on it, in two different keys. After one song is over, you have to go back and hit a button for it to play the other, and it just alternates. So she would start singing the other song before she'd go back to hit the button - and she'd have the right notes, for the new song in the new key. Now, that is the kind of thing that I can relate to, and just thrills me to see! What a great kid. If only I had a better way to help her when she starts spiraling downward, instead of just letting her go and waiting through her tantrum, then I would feel like an adequate parent for her. She is so amazing, and I love her so much! I hope I can be the mom that she deserves... I know that sometimes I am not. I'm afraid that I'm expecting her to be too much like Emily, and not realizing that just because some of the things she does are beyond her years, that she is only 3. How can she be so big and so little at the same time??
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