Sunday, January 13, 2013

The rainbow

I think the storm has passed.  Clara has been sleeping well the past few nights, and Travis and I are becoming human beings again.  He is impressed with how long it has taken him to feel rested again, and I am quite openly enjoying that he's learning first-hand all about sleep deprivation and its subsequent recovery.  It's not that I enjoy seeing him suffer, or that he was unempathetic to me all along, but when he is short with the kids or is still groggy after his first full night's sleep in a week, well, it's just nice to know that I'm not crazy.  Anybody in this situation would do about as well as I have.

For the past few months, I've been trying a little experiment with Clara.  Back when I was potty training Audrey, and reading everything I could find on the internet in desperate search for help, I came across an article about elimination communication, or EC.  Basically, you take the kid potty the same way you would take your dog potty.  The kid can communicate that she needs to go, but for the most part you preemptively set her on the place and she learns that that's when to go.  I really didn't think it would work, although I never have liked the idea of my kid sitting in her own poop.  It seems that humans would not want that, and that we've actually had to teach our kids to do that because of a lack of better alternative.  So, I've got Clara's diapers all set up in the bathroom, since the cloth bin does get to stinking a little bit by the end of the week, and the bathroom is the place for that kind of smell!  I figured, as long as I'm changing her on the floor next to the toilet, I might as well plop her up there once in a while.  The first time I did it, it was because she started peeing while I was changing her, so I just did it out of capturing a mess.  Then I did it more often, and every once in a while she'd be wet when I took her back down.  The first time she pooped was pretty funny, because she was a bit backed up due to some of the new solid foods she'd been trying.  It had been a couple days without messy diapers so I think she had been holding it in, but when sitting in that position, she didn't really have any say in the matter and it was gonna happen.  She let out a terrible scream, and I felt so bad about it, but there was no going back, and it had to come out some time!  After that she didn't want to sit up there at all so I didn't push it for a week or so.  But lately, in the past few days i think she's really preferring to find an opportunity to go on the potty rather than in her diaper. Sometimes I catch her tooting and we go off to the potty together, and sometimes she just decides to hold it until the next opportunity, and she lets it go when she's up there. The most hilarious thing is the diameter of her output. I can't get over it!  She is such a tiny person!!  And she is SO CUTE sitting up there, with her little legs hanging down.  We have the best time, the two of us, nose to nose, singing songs and making faces, or she plays with her toes or reaches for the toilet paper.  If nothing else, we've enjoyed that much of it.  Her cue to pee is a little song that I sing to her, and her little face lights up and she gazes at me so prettily, and I'd swear that she's listening for that happy little noise to happen next!

Anyway, she is still in diapers all the time, and if she decides she doesn't have time to sit on the potty, well, I'll just appreciate the potty-successes we've had and let her do it her way.  In a perfect world, she'd keep up the pooping portion and I'd just change and wash just wet diapers, but I'm not cancelling the diaper service because I don't want to put that kind of pressure on her, or me!  So, yeah.  How much of a hippy am I?! :)

I have been putting in extra effort to spend quality time with Audrey lately, and loving it.  She is such a sweetheart, and I feel like I know her so much better now.  She is not quite as volatile, and she seems to trust me a little more to help her during times that might have previously spiraled into a full-on tantrum.  I bought her an outfit at Kohl's the other day, that has a matching doll's outfit for her Bitty Baby.  Emily was very, very jealous, but she seems to get a lot of special fun things at preschool that Audrey misses out on.  That was a challenge to work through, to explain that it can't be the same but it's still fair, but both girls came to terms with it this time. 

I know I must be better-rested because I can actually remember one of the quotes of Audrey's that cracked me up.  She sings and talks all the time while she's playing, and I heard her say, "Mom, I'm so pretty.  There's nothing to it, really."  Very matter-of-fact.  I'm sure it's because she hears the mice sing it in Cinderelly when they're going to make her dress so pretty, and she has no idea what the phrase actually means.  But it kind of epitomizes her at the moment.  She came into Clara's room tonight after bath, and I held up my finger to tell her to be quiet since Clara was almost asleep.  Audrey struck a little pose, wearing pastel pink footie PJ's and her hair still wet, and whispered, "Am I pretty?"  Yes, you're beautiful.  Most beautiful thing in the world.  And she skipped and scampered off to bed, where I later retrieved more beautiful, chapsticky kisses before turning out the light.

Emily has been giving me hugs while I rock Clara, too, because sometimes she is ready to climb up into her bed before I've laid Clara down.  She'll hug and kiss me, and then skip over to the doorway.  I have such a great mental picture of her happy little steps, ready to go to sleep and have another great day tomorrow.  Travis and I went to her school last week to decorate gingerbread houses, which was an activity rescheduled due to their snowday before Christmas.  It was so cool to see her in her class, singing their little song about the snowman melting.  I swear, she just sparkles.  I would say that none of the other kids were as beautiful or sparkling as my girl, but I can't honestly say that because I couldn't take my eyes off her to look at the other kids.  I don't believe any of the other snowmen had hips that wiggled so joyfully as they melted, or actually sang the notes to the song instead of just shout-singing.  I'm sure all the other parents were just as enraptured with their own kids, but they missed out, cuz my kid is the most amazing thing.

I signed Audrey up for 2 days of preschool, starting next fall.  It's at Lawson Elementary, where Emily is enrolled now and will be for Kindergarten, too.  Travis and I will go to the parent information night for Kindergarten on this coming Tuesday.  It just doesn't seem that long ago that I was enormously overdue with her, and Travis was telling me I needed to put something in that empty carseat...  We were so excited to meet her, and with good reason!  But really, that was it?  School, already??  *sigh*

This is the kind of post I want to do more often, not those toxic, I'm-drowning ones.  I guess there are good and bad, though, so might as well keep it real.  Real Life seems to keep happening all around me, and I am starting to see that celebrations are really kind of an "up yours" to this Real Life thing.  So this weekend I made one of my favorite desserts (Spiced Pecan Pie Bars) and took some to my grandmother on her 93rd birthday, before she went off to watch her Cyclone women win a basketball game.  That's my kind of celebrating!

Friday, January 4, 2013

The longest day

It's 4:30 AM.  I have been essentially awake all night.  Trav and I went to bed at 10:30, and Clara started screaming shortly after 11 and didn't really stop until I gave her tylenol at 2:30.  Then it took her half an hour to settle down, and I think I fell asleep with her in the chair until about 3:40, because when I got up to put her in her crib my entire left arm was asleep from the elbow down.  And after that I've been lying in my bed trying to sleep, unsuccessfully.  The past two nights we've tried to let her cry it out, and it took about 45 minutes.  I don't know what went on tonight, if it's more teeth or what, but I am going crazy.  What I wouldn't do for even 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep.  Or even 4.  I don't know how much longer I can keep this up.

So I might as well blog.  I haven't had time to sit and have a coherent thought to myself in weeks, so I might as well see this as my opportunity, right?

We had a really nice Christmas.  I managed to get everything ready and we had very nice family gatherings.  The girls were thrilled with their Santa gifts, and when we got home from traveling, they were excited with the things that Travis and I got for them, including a trampoline, and new fleece blankets that I tied for them.

Yesterday... Wednesday, I guess, it feels like yesterday because I haven't really been asleep but I guess technically it was two days ago... anyway, I was very sick.  I caught the same stomach bug that went around the New Year's party we went to.  Other children got it, but because I was up all night that night, and thoroughly run down, I caught it too.  My kids didn't, fortunately, because they were able to take care of themselves.  It was totally amazing.  Emily got breakfast for herself and Audrey - all she needed was for me to help unstick the lid on the jam.  Clara napped in the afternoon, and so did I, so Emily and Audrey played nicely with play-doh while I was out.  I was so very, very proud of them, especially Emily.  And I felt so much better today/yesterday that I went to work and had a really great day.  Except that I forgot to give Amanda her Christmas gift, and forgot to tell Emily to give her teachers their gifts that were in her bag.  That snow day that we had on the last day before break is still coming back to haunt me!

I was really hoping, since this blog has been so dismal lately, that I would be able to make my next entry all full of sunny things about my lovely girls, about a happy Christmas and fun times we're having as a family.  those things are all true, but I never seem to have time for this outlet when things are going well.  when things aren't, I guess i just need somewhere to shout that feels safe, where I can feel sorry for myself. 

We went out to eat with some friends last weekend, who were in town from Russia.  The girls were so good during dinner, sitting quietly and coloring and eating everything without any issue at all, that when they requested ice cream afterwards, it was fun to say, Yes! What kind, sweetie?  And all the way home from the restaurant, we told them how much we appreciated the chance to talk with our friends, and that we were proud of them for having such a nice dinner with us.  It felt really good.

Audrey is practicing her phonics.  She likes to pick up words and decide what they start with, and she's totally spot on except for the whole C vs. S thing.  There are times that I think that she's learning to read at the same pace as Emily, but it's not true.  Emily knows a lot more than she lets on, but I don't think she's reached the "click" yet, where she discovers she can sound out nearly anything just by using the letters.  It'll be fun to see her world open up when that happens.

And I guess Audrey's freak-outs lately are just a cry for attention.  It's so hard, because I don't want to reward that behavior with attention, but that's how I head it off.  If she's headed down that slope, I try to jump in and address what's making her so mad, although sometimes I just let her go, and hope that she'll figure out, someday, how to decide for herself that she's done being angry and that she would rather be happy instead.  Seems like that might be a tool she'll appreciate having later in life.  I am tired of coaxing her out of her tizzy fits.  But I just try my best to love her more.  It's the only thing that doesn't leave me hating myself.

I just heard Clara squeak again. This is insane. I guess I've done these kinds of nights before, and I can get through tomorrow.  I'm just tired of being sick, and being incapable of having coherent thoughts, like remembering to actually give the gifts that I chose and purchased and wrapped for people.  I'm tired of feeling inadequate... there's so much around me that i just can't get to, I just can't get done.  I can limp along, I guess, since everyone else seems to be afloat.  I'll catch up at some point.