Four

Four years ago today, my baby was born. No matter how old she gets, she'll always be my baby. I think she knows that too. She's my snuggler, but lately she's been taking that to a new level, even for her. This week she's been wanting to curl up on the couch on me & snuggle up to watch a show or read a book. I think the realization of not being the "little kid" so much any more is starting to hit her. For the first time, I think she's realizing that being the little kid isn't always a bad thing, and maybe she wants to hold on to it just a little bit longer.

It's ironic really, Little has been in a hurry to get big since birth. There is nothing more that she wants than to keep up with her sister. In every picture I have of Little, as a baby she is looking at her sister, without fail. While five is the big milestone in which many good things happen, four is a door opener for sure in her book. She's so pleased with finally not being three anymore, you can almost see a sense of relief on her face over it. And, so now she considers herself a "big kid" and while still checking in with me, all. the. time. about how "babies can't do this thing I'm doing right now, right mama?" Her highest priority on her party day was to make sure her sister wasn't left out. We went to a Pump It Up (easiest party I have EVER done BTW!) and the whole time she was keeping tabs on her sister. She would go off and run around with her friends, but would be sure to check to see where her sister was and touch base with her. When it came time for birthday cake, she happily took her place on the "throne" to blow out her candles, but she wanted to "sit by sissy" to eat that cake. We had to scoot kids around to accommodate her. When it was time to open presents, she made sure we knew that she wanted her sister to have a crown like hers, not a problem in our house, and that she wanted "Big to open some of her presents for her, so she wouldn't feel left out." Big, the caregiver that she is, was happy to dote on her sister and provide her every wish. In the end, I don't think Big opened any gifts, but read each and every card to her sister, who hung on her every word. Now, Big wants to write the thank you cards for Little, "because sissy can't write yet." The lovefest that is going on here is almost too much. Later this week, I want to write about the girl that Little has started to become. How three was hard, as expected. How she, and we have all grown this last year, and how excited I am for four for her. But for tonight, I want to relish the memory of the last couple days. When my two girls want nothing more than to make each other happy and are doing just that.

Another Milestone, "I Don't Like You!"

We've been barraged with illness here in the House O'Speak. Little started it with a really rotten cold which lasted 7 days at which time we spent a full night awake with her and a double ear infection. About a day after that, Big started with the cold. On Thursday (last Thursday) evening she got a fever that lasted all weekend. I could get it down to around 99, but until Sunday morning she was feeling cruddy and miserable. Little, in the meantime was getting better. And bouncing off the walls. On Wednesday, I had my first Physical Therapy (PT) appointment since my MRI diagnosis. By Friday, I was more or less couch bound. As you might imagine, the Speak house was big fun this last week. By Monday morning, Little was feeling like herself, Big was dragging herself along, as was I. Little saw her opportunity.

Little started with hassling her sister, of course. She wanted the pink spoon, and the orange cup, etc... After they ate, they went into the bathroom with instructions to brush their hair & teeth. Big has long hair, so it takes her a little longer and she's the one who actually needed to be somewhere at a certain time. Knowing this, Little made sure to grab the hair brush first. I was finishing getting Big's lunch together in the kitchen and could hear the scuffle starting the bathroom. I yelled for Little to give her sister the brush. Little yelled something to the effect that she needed it. I replied, "Give the brush to your sister, or you're going to get a time out!" To which Little responded by throwing the brush on tile floor, while yelling (in case the all caps didn't give it away), "NO! DAMN IT! I NEED IT!"

As you might imagine, my 3 year old was so dead not getting away with that one. I went into the bathroom, where I found her sitting on her step stool hugging the brush. I took the brush & gave it to her sister. Grabbed her wrist, and dragged her to the timeout chair. The whole time she was yelling at me how she, "Needed to brush her hair!" I was asking her if she wanted her mouth washed out with soap. She was not happy. As I placed her into the chair, she turned toward me and yelled, "Bad Mommy!" while trying to hit me. I grabbed her arm as it came toward me, so instead she tried to bite me. "THAT'S IT! YOU'RE GETTING SOAP!" And she got a pump between the lips. Soap in the mouth, pleased the heck out of her, as you might guess. She ran to the bathroom for water, which didn't help. So she shouted at me, "I DON'T LIKE YOU!" Ahhh, another milestone. (Her sister hasn't said this one to me yet.) I replied, "Well, I don't like the way you're acting." Then she became a puddle. I told her to go brush her teeth, that it would help. She asked me to help her, so I did. And we moved on.

And THAT is how my week STARTED.

Rite of Passage -- The Haircut

I went away this weekend. Had a spa day with the girls down in Southern California. It was lovely. Till I got my phone from my locker at the end of the day. Had a couple calls, emails & text messages from DaddySpeak. I called him without listening or looking. It's extremely unusual for him to call me like that. Several times and all. He answered,

Him: "Did you see your messages?"
Me: "I saw you called & left messages, is everything ok?"
Him: "You need to look at your messages."
Me: "Ok, I'm getting concerned, everyone's ok, right? What's going on?"
Him: "I sent you a a picture, (I'm scrolling my email, not finding anything from him.) you need to look at it. Everyone is fine."
(I'm losing patience at this point. The tone of his voice tells me it isn't something funny or cute. But ok, no one's hurt.)
Me: "I don't have a message from you. Listen, what's up. Just tell me first, ok, I can tell from you voice I'm not going to be thrilled and whatever I'm imagining is worse than what you're going to say."
Him: "Ok, I SENT you a text with the picture in it! Little cut her hair."
Me: "WHA???? How, what?... How bad is it?"
Him: "That's why I sent a picture."
Me: "I don't understand how she got scissors, they're all up high. Even the ones that won't cut anything but paper..."
Him: "She was cold, so I told her to go to her room to get a sweatshirt. She was taking too long, so I went up to check on her and she was in the study with her bangs cut. She found them in a drawer in the study."

So apparently, Little climbed over a bunch of storage baskets and boxes to get to the desk in the study. I hid put a bunch of Christmas stuff in there and haven't gotten it out yet. So there's a huge pile of boxes and whatnot in that room, it was no small task for her to get to the desk. The scissors, jeez, we didn't know they were in there. Well, I didn't. I thought all the scissors in the house had been placed on a high shelf in the kitchen. Not that she couldn't have gotten to scissors placed high up, she's resourceful. I figured if they were up that high, hopefully someone would catch her before she actually got anywhere near them. I'm not surprised that she did it. That's why the scissors are stored so high up. I know my kid.

DaddySpeak gave her a time out & then whisked her to a close by hair salon. They basically cut the rest of her hair shorter, as if a short bob with extra short bangs was what we wanted. Remember, Little has curly hair (like her mama) and I had a hard time finding a kids cutting place that knew how to cut curly hair. Obviously, that's not where he went. I'm not holding out too much hope on the quality of the cut. We'll see. His intention was good.

Bet you think that's the end of the story, don't you? Ha, ha, it's never that easy with Little. After they got back from the hair dresser Daddy was keeping an extra close on her. She wasn't too happy about this new development, so she went into the bathroom and then came out & informed him she peed. Yes, she peed herself standing next to the toilet. She was quite pleased with herself. The next morning she came in from the bathroom and informed him she'd done it again. She was naked from the waist down, she told him she'd put her pants in the sink, like he'd done with hers when cleaning up the night before. When he went into the bathroom he found her dry pants in the sink. "Just kidding" she says.

OH. MY. GOD. She's three!
I was sick at the thought of what else she could've done in the time she had to cut her hair. How she could have hurt herself. I'm mean seriously physically ill. My stomach was in knots at the thought. She needs to understand why what she did was not OK. That when mommy and daddy say not to do something, you don't do it.
Obviously she's enjoying the attention this whole deal has brought her, so I realized I needed to find some kind of punishment that meant something to her. A spanking won't work, she'll try to hit you back. Taking away a favorite toy, she'll hand you a few more. Time out, this warrants more than a mere time out. Showing her what her hair looks like, she's proud of the job she's done & is enjoying all the attention it's providing. No, I need to hit her where it hurts.

Starbucks.

No Starbucks for a week. "Won't that be a punishment for you as well?" Nope, it won't. I fully intend to go to Starbucks with her in tow and not let her get anything. I also intend to take her sister and get her something, but not let Little. Sounds mean? It is, but that's the point. It needs to really bother her. It needs to make her think twice about doing something like this again. Right now, she thinks her antics have garnered her lots of attention (granted it's negative, but she doesn't seem to mind) and a trip to the hair salon. I want her to realize that she lost something over this incident. She needs to understand that, or I can't imagine what she'll be like by age 13.

Wordless Wednesday - Kansas Style

Girls got to go horseback riding at Papa's farm in Kansas. They were pretty pleased about the whole deal. In case the ear-to-ear grins didn't clue you in. ;-)

Personaly Stimulating the Economy & Healthcare System

So you know how busy I was those last couple weeks? Yeah, well writing about it didn't jinx it or anything. It has still be crazy busy.

Yesterday, I got a call from school to come pick up Big. She had a stomach ache. She's been on meds for reflux since April & they don't seem to be cutting it anymore. They seemed to help initially, but now it seems like they aren't lasting as long & the frequency of her stomach aches are more often. I made an appointment to have her seen today, so they could refer her to a GI doctor for more testing. Did you know, the way they determine if your kid has reflux is to give them the meds. If the meds help, then volia, it's reflux, if not, then they test them for other things. No, really that's how they decide if your kid has reflux. Before we move to do anything else, I want her tested for to be sure it is reflux. So I will be dealing with this during the holidays. They also changed her meds, just to see if this other brand might help more. Doubtful.

Big also complained of a tooth hurting her yesterday. She said it felt like food was stuck in-between her teeth. When I went to take a look, ACK! She had an abscess! DaddySpeak thought it might be a really bad canker sore, but I wasn't messing around with it. Trust me, it was NASTY! Funny, I can watch you bleed out or someone take your heart out & it won't phase me. But if it involves the mouth, I get grossed out so easily. I actually considered (and so did the dentist) that the new tooth might be coming in, but because it was so crowded, it was being pushed out. Strait out. Like toward the front of her mouth. Ewww! It gives me the heebie jeebies just to think about it. Anyway, we had a 7 PM dentist appointment to confirm it's an abscess and the tooth needs to come out. Her baby canine is being crowded out by the tooth right in front of it, which is an adult tooth. The new tooth's root is crowding out the baby tooth's root, which is not ready to dissolve just yet. So the new tooth ended up killing the nerve in the baby tooth and causing the abscess. We're going to a pediatric dentist so she can have nitrous. They can't get us in till tomorrow. I am also getting my permanent crown on tomorrow. So it'll just be a dentist sort of day for us Speaks. It's a party!

Not to be left out, Little has had a runny nose this week. Nothing big, but she has to blow a couple times a day or so. On the way to the doctor for Big she complained of her ear bothering her. She's been grumpy because of this cold/runny nose I told her I'd get the doctor to look at it, to get her to chill. Worked too. Doctor looked at it and she seems to have the start of a an ear infection. Great!

Tonight after dinner & bath, I drove over to the pharmacy to get reflux meds for Big & antibiotics for Little. Somewhere in between all of this I'm going to pack to go on vacation. And at some point in time I'm actually going to sleep too. I swear it's going to happen.

Happy Halloween!

OK, really it's Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)! Halloween was Kra-Zeee!!! Fun, but Krazee! We went Trick-or-Treating w/our neighbors, which meant about 20 kids. (No exaggeration!) It took us about 2 hours to basically go around the block, and the kids scored with all their loot. (And Mama & Daddy did pretty well on Trick-or-Drink, I love Halloween!) Very Mayberry USA. We had georgous weather, wore sweatshirts & jeans, and had a nearly full moon. Perfect. Not much else to say, it was perfect. Perfectly uneventful & normal.

The Face of Swine Flu

So this is the face of swine flu. Oink. OK, the faces.
Yup, we got it. Both of them. Guess that sort of absolves me in my lack of posting.
Sort of.
The irony is that I didn't think they had it. That's how mild their cases are. My mom got her panties all in a bunch over the fact that they had fevers that came & went and came & went...and next thing I know I'm on the phone with the after hours advice nurse....And now I'm finding out, all about all the kids we go to school with, play soccer with, in Daisy scouts with, etc...who have already had it. They said their kids were "sick" no one fessed up the flu until they heard we had it. Then they're all like, "Oh yeah, watch that cause I thought DD was better b/c we were without a fever for 24 hours, and a day later it came back." So that's why you sent her back to school? And exposed my child? I'm not really bitter about that. I mean, there's no way to know where my kids got it; school, grocery store, pumpkin patch, restaurants, doctor's office (getting seasonal flu shots)... I get that. But, it does irk me that it's already been so rampant in our area & I really had no idea. I know it's around and I know there are places where it's been crazy. I just didn't think our school had been hit all that hard, yet. Now, who knows. I don't know that I would've done anything any differently had I known. But, maybe I would have, and the fact that the choice to do something about it was taken from me is what irks me about that.

Water under the bridge, I guess, right? For what it's worth, I reported our cases to the girls' schools & have called or emailed the clubs, sports teams, classes they may have exposed. I have also been very open with any and every one about the fact that they have it. I mean it's the flu, not leprosy.

Our reality; we're out of school for the week. ACK! Any suggestions? I have two bored kids, who are occasionally running a mild fever (and knock on wood, by the time you're reading this we've probably gone more than 24 hours w/out a fever). They can't go anywhere other people really are, but they have plenty of energy. Wish me luck!

Dude, I can't make this shite up!

Both girls are in bed right now with fevers of 103 & 101. I anticipate mine should hit sometime around 3ish (that's when Little's hit today, I seem to be 24 hours behind her all month).

So to recap:
Little has been sick for 2.5 of the 3 weeks of October.
She had a virus w/a fever, Which turned into
A rotten cold, which turned into
a sinus infection. And now seems to have a
NEW VIRUS!!!

Just for shites & grins:

I got Little's virus 24 hours after her
I got the rotten cold, which
went into my sinus (I don't think I got the full blown infection). And now
Big has her NEW VIRUS.

Should we start a pool on what time my fever shows up?

Absent

I know I've totally been MIA. Like I mentioned Little was sick & then I was sick. Then we had the weekend o'craziness; (drunken) MNO, soccer game, Halloween party, CCD, etc...you get the idea. Throw in a nap for mommy cuz I wasn't 100% yet. This was followed by Round 2!!! Yup we're still sick!!! Or maybe it was really Version 1.1 Little's virus basically evolved down to a mild cold. As did mine. And while she did have a cough, it was mostly at night & didn't seem to bother her. I wasn't even giving her medicine for it, cause it's supposed to be better to let your kids work thru it. The cough is helping bring it out. Right??? So much for that theory. Sunday I was up most of the night w/her and an ear ache. Actually, she said her ear hurt & her mouth. Wha? I suspected sinus b/c that's how mine seem to bother me and neither of my kids really gets ear infections.

I think Big had maybe 2 ear infections that we knew about. Both of which we found out when we were at the doctor for other things. "Hey, did you know your kid has a double ear infection?" Um, No. Parent of the year here. Little had one 2 years ago (dr told me during our appt on Monday).


Obviously, I have a lack of experience in the ear infection arena. I was even on Twitter asking for remedies for the pain since Motrin & Tylenol didn't seem to be helping. Let me tell you there isn't much I can think of that will give you worse mom guilt than your 3YO asking you to call the dr to fix it at 2AM. Dude! I did notice that she was exhausted, but her cough seemed to be keeping her from fulling falling asleep. I gave her cough medicine & while I don't think that made it stop hurting, she did fall asleep. So she could bounce off the walls and act FINE all day Monday. Seriously. I was exhausted. She was not. There's an understatement. Finally got into the doctor's office (where she had to wear a mask. OMG!!!) And, yup, sinus infection. She's on antibiotics & doing fine.

I, on the other hand, have a low grade fever, chills & sinus headache. Bah!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Last Days of Summer

Pictures from watching our friends band Sunday night.
Fancy, outdoor mall, cooling off from 100 degree day, good music, good food, good friends. Nice way to spend one of the last days of summer.

Wordless Wednesday-Bedtime Stories

Don't be fooled. This example of Beaver Cleaver-like family bliss, lasted about as long as it took to take the pix. They like the idea of Big reading to Little, but in actual practice, not so much. Big gets frustrated w/some words, Little gets impatient & wants to turn pages. Yelling, grabbing, screaming ensues (by the kids too)...You get the idea, but it is gonna make a really cute scrapbook page, dontcha think?

A Day in the Life of a SAHM...grumble, grumble

Wow am I having a day! Not a go buy I bought a lottery ticket kind of day. More like a, the lottery (for the whole state) would some how break if I bought a ticket. THAT kind of a day.

Started last night, Little woke up w/a really, really bad dream. Neither of my girls will ever talk about bad dreams, is this normal? Anyway, when this happens I usually hug her & put her back in bed. Sometimes, I will lay w/her for a few minutes. Last night was bad, so she wanted me to lay w/her. After 10 minutes I said I was going to go, and that was fine. Ten minutes after that, I hear her in her room screaming again (she's got a potential future in horror films w/this scream). Go through the same drill. Three's a charm! Only this time, she's not letting me leave. She's had it w/this nightmare crap & apparently a parent in her bed is the only thing that will help. After a good hour of me thinking she's fallen asleep, only to have her freak as I'm trying to sneak out, I allow her to come to our bed. Didn't have to ask her twice. She jumped into our bed & snuggled right up to daddy, who has managed to sleep through the entire episode!

Three a.m. I wake to:
Little: "Daddy! Daddy! I peed my panties."
Daddy: SH**!! Yup. OK, go take off your panties & put on a pull up.
Me: "She wet the bed?" (She has NEVER had an accident, of course her first is in our bed.)
Daddy: "Just a really small amount. I'm putting a towel over it.
In other words, he wasn't getting up to change the sheets. I let him get away w/it (because it was in his side, and) it really was a pretty small amount. So I'm washing sheets right now, and will be remaking our King sized bed when he gets home. (Something I avoid due to my back.)

Love to stop right there and say my night sucked and I'm tired, but my morning continued this direction. I hit my exhaustion point around 4: 30 yesterday, so I didn't eat dinner (unless Oreos count). When I woke up, (and ate my dinner of Oreos and Diet Dr. Pepper) I watched Glee (new favorite guilty pleasure!) and I went to bed. Daddy unloaded the dishwasher & did dishes (or so I thought). When I got up this morning I realized he unloaded the dishwasher onto the counters & piled half of the dishes in the sink. Not a deal breaker for our morning routine or anything, but it is a pet peeve to have dirty dishes around the clean ones. Grumble, grumble...
Got girls off to school w/little incident, but did notice that my clean shirt has a stain on it. Grumble, grumble....
Got my Starbucks mocha, only to realize their chocolate syrup must be close to being out. (Tasted more like a sweet Latte) I even went back & asked for an extra pump. Added another when I got home. But you know, it wasn't perfect. (For $4 a day it ought to be perfect.) Grumble, grumble...
Have a bunch of important emails to send/answer, so I sat down to get to it, and my laptop locked up on me. Grumble, grumble....

After that I decided to cut my losses, nap (on the couch, cause my bed has no sheets!) and see if I can't start this day over w/less Grumble, grumble...

Wordless Wednesday - First Dentist Visit

First Dentist Visit














First Orthodontist referral














And this is where my bank account and I start crying....

You Knew It Wouldn't Last...

All that posting in a just a week or two. I'm truly a bi-polar blogger. (Now there's a new blog I could start!) I was all set to write my experience w/the Lincoln MKT and it all came to a screeching halt w/this:



These pix actually makes it look good. Little (aka--Little Miss Accident Prone) got a fight w/a chair and lost. Friday night at Big's soccer practice Little & a buddy were picking flowers & collecting them on my beach chair. (I was standing watching practice at his point.) All the sudden, Little trips (over her own feet I guess?) and falls. If she had been a few inches back or anywhere else on the field she would've fallen & it would have been no big deal. But she had the perfect storm where she cracked her eye/head on the edge of the chair. We've been in recovery mode ever since. Truth is she's been fine. I've been on edge.

Friday we didn't do anything to it. Got it to stop bleeding (mostly), but she wouldn't really let us do much to it, including cleaning & ice. Soccer team goes out to dinner after Friday practice, and since our girls are deprived when it comes to eating out she was absolutely game for that! While we had to dab it a little, (still bleeding a bit) she seemed fine, played w/the kids & happily ate her dinner. We figured we'd let it go & depending on how it was looking in the morning we'd take her to the doctor.

We were also supposed to head to the beach house for the weekend in the morning. When she got up, it wasn't looking stellar. Now I know, often these things look worse for a couple days while they're healing. But the big thing was that the edges of where the split was weren't meeting up and it was still weeping quite a bit. So off to the doctor we went. Luckily, our pediatrician's office has Saturday morning hours. I called & they said bring her in, and her doctor was the one who was working. So first things first, they looked at it & felt they needed to clean it to decide if it needed stitches (or more likely glue), so had to wait for a nurse. Nurse came in & brought Little some dayglo bracelets. So Miss Happy laid there & let the nurse have at her eye w/nary a peep. Nurse was amazed at how chill she was, so I told her Little's stitches story. Not sure she totally believed me, but she didn't completely doubt me either, considering how calm she was now.

Let me preface this part by saying that usually blood & guts stuff does NOT bother me. I was in a science magnet high school & our senior year physiology class was all lab practicals on animals AND we got to go to UCSF and take cadavers apart. (Didn't continue in this area b/c I couldn't hack the upper level math. Well wasn't motivated to at least.)

So the nurse is cleaning and when she gets to the where the actual split is, she pulls it apart to clean it better, and umm, gross! My stomach flipped acouple times. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I turned green. You know the slot that opens for your eye to see thru? Well, Little's is a bit longer right now. Ugg! I'm still recovering from it. Like I said, Little was fine, mom needed some help. After being cleaned the doctor came back to check it, and decided it was "borderline" glue. But didn't want to be the one to make the decision for sure, so she called in another doctor, who did the same thing. Finally, we had a little party, w/all 4 doctors working that day, a nurse, me & Little. Seems none of the doctors wanted to be the one to make the final call. Learned that day that it takes 4 doctors to decide NOT to do anything.

They did put suture bandages on it to hold the skin together. Then the told us to keep in clean & out of the sun (there goes the beach!) Little managed to pull the bandages off about 2 hours later. Of course. Daddy put a Barbie bandaid on it, and that stayed put (so there doctors!). It'll be a week tomorrow and if you're looking you can see her eye is still swollen, and there's scab, but nothing huge. Kids heal fast.
My emotional scars will take much longer and require many more margaritas I'm sure.

Sleep, it turns out, not so overrated

When you first have a child you expect to have many sleepless nights. It's one of those things everyone tells you about. Even though most of us are astounded at how much sleep you don't get, you do have a sense of what's coming. Later, depending on your "sleeping philosophy" (yes, there is too such a thing) when you finally decide your child needs to sleep in their own bed, in their own room, you will usually experience a similar bout of sleeplessness in your efforts. Also, sort of understood that you're going to go thru this when you choose to co-sleep. I hear the teenage years also give you a new reason to lose sleep, but we aren't at that juncture yet. I guess the point is that, I get it, when you have kids you lose out on your sleep. I just didn't expect it now.

Little background:
I have FM (Fibromyalgia). One of the major components of FM is not sleeping. I look like I'm sleeping, I just never get to any REM sleep. To say it SUCKS would not begin to do it justice. So, I am familiar with lack of sleep. I also have been very lucky in finding protocols that have been affective in treating my symptoms. I guard my sleep very closely as you might imagine.

When the girls were born, they slept in their own rooms from the first night home. I know, I'm an evil, evil woman and they will require years of therapy for it, I'm sure. Both girls, BTW, slept thru the night from day 1. Ducks Ok, so before you get your panties in a bunch over it, we still had our share of lost sleep. Both girls were also very small (for full term) and had trouble gaining weight. They fed well, they just couldn't get much in them in the beginning. Trust me I had my full share of stressful newborn stuff, and we had to set alarms so as not to miss feedings. No, the baby didn't wake us to be fed, but if we didn't wake her & missed a feeding, it was a pretty big deal. (With Big, we had to go to the doc to have her weighed every other day. She should've been back in the hospital for failure to thrive, but the doc knew I was doing everything possible to rectify it, so he gave us a pass, as long as we came in for weighs every other day to show we weren't slipping backward with her.) That being said, both my girls have been excellent sleepers from the day 1.

Little has always been an early bird, which SUCKS, cause I'm a night owl , but otherwise on the sleep front our girls have been amazing. Until....the last six months. When it comes to Little, everything is about control. So when she started giving us a hard time w/bedtime, we knew it wasn't really about being tired or not. We've gone thru the: lay w/me, need water, one more book, have to go to the bathroom, phases...it doesn't matter, she'll find an excuse to delay. Then we went thru a long, drawn out period of her getting up & us putting her back to bed. (The record was 80x in one night. Nanny Joe would've been proud.) We've gotten past all that, finally, and now she's started w/middle of the night stuff. She gets up in the middle of the night (2/3 AM,) goes to the bathroom & climbs into bed with us! At first, she'd come to my side & try to get me to pick her up. That didn't fly. Now she's sneaky and climbs in, in between us so we won't wake right up. But, Mama is a lousy sleeper, and she usually wants to snuggle up with (or kick) me. Both of those are more than enough to wake me & try to get her back into her own bed. (I won't sleep more or less, once she's in our bed.) Putting her back in her bed results in tantrum throwing; ear piercing screams, throwing herself on the ground, face as a wall of snot, the full deal. It's a minimum 1 hour deal on a good night. Most nights it goes on till it's time to get up. We put a lock on her door (so we could lock her in) but that resulted in her starting out w/the tantrum because she couldn't get out of her room to pee. We still think that's part of hte answer for now, but I sure wish she'd stop screaming.

She's deceptively cute.

On top of it, she's been running a fever off and on all week, so she's not sleeping all that great anyway. Now I have the fever (big surprise). I'm averageing 2-3 hours per night right now, and I have two very active girls, who don't nap, during the day.
I don't really expect any great solutions (other than putting some whisky in her juice at dinner). I know we're doing what we should do to resolve this and it's just a matter of being consistent. I just wanted to vent.

And to tell you, "Damn, I'm tired."

Wordless Wednesday

Not completely Wordless Wednesday....

So I dropped a bomb & disappeared for while. Your welcome. I am going to address the bomb I dropped BTW, just not today. And when I do, it'll be quick, so don't blink, you might miss it.

So, where have I been? Gonna use "wordless Wednesday" to show you:








Spent a week and a half in July at the beach!







Yes, they are only 6 & 3. And yes, they are Boogie Boarding already. I'm doomed.

Threats

Little wouldn't quit w/the disruption on the packing. You know it's all about her, so laundry, cooking dinner, packing bags, not really her thing. I finally told her that if she didn't knock it off she was going to stay home w/Daddy for the weekend and Big & I would go to the beach. That kicked her butt into gear. Finally, something worked.

Then Daddy got home, and she stuck to him like glue. He couldn't get the kid to leave him alone for two seconds. Since he's trying to load the car, she's continually getting stepped on, smashing fingers in the ice chest, you get the idea. Once the car has been opened up she is IN HER SEAT & will NOT get out. I decide maybe she's overtired & hungry, so I warm up diner for the girls so we can finished getting the car loaded up. (Sausage & Quiche, they love these things.)

She counts out loud: "One, two, three" (pops three bites of sausage in her mouth,) "One, two, three" pops three bites of quiche in her mouth, required amounts to have completed dinner in our house) and declares herself done.
I told her that was fine, she didn't have to eat anymore if she really was full, but if she didn't eat all her dinner she couldn't get a jamba juice on the way. (Bribes)

Little: "That's fine. I don't want a Jamba Juice." (hops in open car, starts putting on seatbelt, and will not get out.)

I finally realized that she was sure I was going to leave her home. She figured as long as Daddy kept telling her he was going then she was, but just to make sure she was getting in her seat & NOT getting out.

Guess it's nice to know I have some clout around here after all.

Packing

Got a few little posts to share from this weekend & such. (NO interwebs again at the beach!!! The humanity!!!)

So anywho, on Friday I'm trying to pack and I tell the girls to pick up the playroom. "No one's leaving for the beach until the house is packed & picked up!"
Big is doing her part, she gets that I don't really care how they pick it up, just that I can see the floor when it's done.
Little, on the other hand, is taking toys out when Big puts them away. In fact, she waits till Big has finished putting away, say a 100+ piece puzzle & then dumps out the box. (Lovely child.)
Big is, understandably, kinda flipping out over this.
I call Little into the kitchen and tell her she needs to help PUT AWAY. She tells me, "No." So...

Me: "You need to help our you're going to get a time out & go take a nap in your room."
Little: (hand on hip) "Fine! I'll go to my room!"

And then I died from laughing.

She's THREE (barely) and she calls my bluff every time!

Recession Era Cleaning! And other uplifting stories.

Well based on the title of my last post, this one ought to be entitled something like, "Someone Must Be Crapping Butterflies" No? My point is that it just keeps getting better round here. If you follow my twitter you may have noticed that I am now the "evil mommy." You missed that? Well, let's just say that I'm finding new uses for cleaning products all the time!

Little is still on her rampage and today started in w/the spitting again. To be honest, I don't even remember what her issue was at the time. But by the time she was being punished I was done with her. She spit 2x and got warnings and I was just at the end of my rope. She's THREE! If I can't get control of her now (or let's be honest, I'm trying to teach her to control herself) what the heck will I do when she's 13??? So I grabbed the bottle of hand soap from the kitchen counter & walked into the (time out) dinning room. She was screaming and spitting and just generally being lovely while standing in front of (she wouldn't stay in) the time out chair. So, I stuck the little pump into her mouth & gave it a press and she promptly
FLIPPED. THE. F. OUT.
It got her attention, that's for sure. She then spent some time doing some more spitting; trying to get the soap out her mouth. Yes, I do see the irony of my actions. And I was fearful for a time that she was going to force herself to barf over it. That would've taught me, huh. In the end, I was able to get her to calm down so that I could help her rinse out her mouth w/out making it worse. She didn't like it, so we'll see if it's a deterrent or not in the future. I'm hopeful, but not that optimistic.
All the time this was happening, she was devastated that I did it to her. You could see the look in her eyes. I'm the one who's supposed to love her no matter what awful thing she does or how far she pushes me and I did THIS to her? I know that I'm teaching her boundaries and appropriate responses, etc...and that if I don't, I'm not doing her any favors. I totally get that. But it doesn't make me feel any less guilty about it. I've tried giving her chances to do the right thing, rewarding good behavior and even hugging her to try and help her reset. What I want to do when this stuff is going down is really just hug her super tight and somehow make her understand that I really do love her so very much and to please stop trying to make me prove it to her. I hate this part of parenting. I hate having to punish her. I hate feeling like I'm not giving her sister enough attention (cause she's the "good one") and I hate that she lacks the control to stop herself and I don't seem to know how to help her find it. Sigh

More sunshine and rainbows!

Well 3 has gotten off to an officious start.
Let me start this off by stating that everyone I know w/young kids (3 & under) seems to be having similar experiences. All of our kids seem to have freaked the F out. I don't know if it's the moon phase or air pressure change or what, but in the last week it seems like all of our kids have turned into complete THREE YEAR OLDS (aka-monsters!!!). You know what they say about 3? It's 2 w/a year of experience. (I'll be here all zee week, don't forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses!)

So that being said; Little bit the crap out of me last night. You may remember we had some issues in the past w/the biting. (You know one of the catalysts that got us into a kiddie shrink for a while). But somehow this was worse. Maybe it was because she's bigger (and stronger) or maybe it's because she hasn't really pulled anything like this in quite a while, I really feel like I've failed her. Is that weird? Shouldn't I be pissed at her?

Here's what happened:
We started the day w/her in snitch anyway. My girlfriend w/the twins came over in the AM which was good cause she was just getting into stuff to push my buttons. So our morning was covered. In the afternoon we had gymnastics (also good, blows off lots of steam) and then M and planned to hit the outlet mall which now has a Crocs store. We dropped our car off at our house and in the 5 mins it took to get there Little had fallen asleep. Considering her mood earlier in the day I should've had bells going off and LET HER SLEEP. But it seemed silly to take two cars, so I woke her and we piled into M's van. Once there I realized I had forgotten a stroller (restraint device) of any type and then was reminded the entire time, why I don't shop w/both my kids. OMG! I suppose they weren't any worse than any one else's kids, but kids running around in a store drives me nuts! Just writing about it stresses me out. I can feel my BP rising right now. So anyway we head home after I spent 30 mins yelling at my kids. We get back to our house and Little runs to the grass so she can stand (safely) and wave bye. I tell her to come in and she not only ignores me, but runs down to the side walk & starts running in circles. (Remember what I said about pushing buttons?) I (more sternly) tell her to "get in the house NOW!", which she ignores. So I get her and march her by the arm into the house. Well, this was not the response she was looking for, so she's trying to hit at me & then tries to spit me (lovely new habit, she learned it at school). Now we're in our doorway so I give her smack on the butt (not a hard one, but a smack still) and tell her, "You don't hit or spit at Mommy!" She then turns around to me and screams, "YOU DON'T HIT ME MOMMY!" To which I reply, "You don't talk to Mommy like that! You're getting a time out." She's less than pleased and isn't going to participate if she can help it, so I pick her up to take her to the time out chair. Mind you, my back has been a mess since Sunday, so picking her up is really something I should be avoiding (and this scenario shows a lot of why my back is taking so long to heal.) So I pick her up so that her front is laying across my arm (my hand is holding between her legs and my arm is supporting most of her weight). She retaliates by clamping onto the inside of my arm WITH. HER. TEETH! She didn't get a big chunk either. No, she got like a "pinch" so I couldn't pull her off w/out ripping the skin. Instead I go to hold her like that while yelling at her to let go. When she finally did, well as you might imagine, my arm modeling career is done. I gave her 3 more smacks on the bum (she was unfazed) and put her into the time out chair. She's screaming and generally carrying on (I can only imagine what the neighbors must think.) And, cue Daddy walking in. He took one look at me and said, "What's going on?" I didn't say anything I just gave me a look and then showed him my arm. He was shocked (by now the bite, was red & purple and very swollen). I informed him that I was "done" for the evening, got a pain pill (for my back) and laid down on the couch.

Daddy, the saint that he is, took Little out back. She continued her tantrum for at least another 30 minutes. One part resulted in her spinning herself in circles and carrying on, while sitting on the deck. Her feet were bare, so that resulted in many large splinters. She, of course, wanted Mommy to get them out & make her feel better. Daddy told her, "No way, not till you apologize." This, resulted in more tantrum. Eventually she agreed to apologize & I worked on her foot till I had enough wood to build a small fire. Then we were done with the episode.

Now, while I'm not a proponent of spanking/hitting in general, I do think there are times/situations when it's warranted. In hindsight, I think I might have been better served w/some liquid soap in the mouth, but still the spanking is not what I'm feeling guilty about. No, I'm just sad because I don't know how to help her get past this. I feel like I'm failing her, cause she's only 3 and I should be able to teach her how to funnel these feelings more productively. I guess I'm feeling as frustrated as she does.

Today, after school, she was back to her funny, goofy, sweet self. Of course.