It's The Little Things That Make My Heart Melt

Today is the day we go to get my 6 year old's other earring re-pierced.  She is hesitant and nervous, they piercer has to again trick her to get it done.  She screams a little tiny scream looks in the mirror and quickly looks up at me with tears in her eyes and the biggest smile I've seen in a long time and says "It's done, yeah, it's done!" Then she wraps her arms around my waist buries her head into my tummy and gives me the biggest hug.

I am sitting on the bench in the mall feeding my baby while her older sisters are amusing themselves and drinking their bottles of juice.  My 3 year old is standing in front of me drinking and listening to the music over the mall speakers (obviously enjoying her own little world).  Then I notice her hips, ever so slightly, start moving from side to side, she is bobbing her head very subtly.  Her hips start to move a little more, then she starts bending her knees down, down she goes. Yep, there she goes her little butt is wiggling away, she just starts bopping to the music.

I'm holding my baby in my arms and trying to get her to say some words (okay, noises).  

I start with 'baba'...no go

'dada'....she repeats it

'mama'....nothing

So I point and touch my chest mama, then I do the same to her and say her name, I point and do the same to my chest and when I touch her chest again I get the cutest high pitch giggle out of her.  

.....My heart is 3 times bigger than before I had children, I love you girls with all my heart.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

I started to write a blog for two reasons first to get all my thoughts out on paper (so to speak) so my mind stops racing (especially at bed time) and also as a look back.  When my girls are older it might be interesting to see how things were; the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Then it occurs to me I haven't written much in regards to my baby.  Which is quite surprising since she is a huge part of my day, needing as much care as she does at this age.  

My third beautiful girl is now 8-1/2 months old.  She is bright, beautiful and a thrill to watch these days as she is learning so much.  We are having a rough time sleeping these past couple of nights since I'm pretty sure those stubborn upper middle incisors are coming out (hopefully soon).  So we wake up kinda early today, I bring her into our bed hoping to nurse her then maybe (if I'm lucky) get a touch more sleep.  She is more interested in playing around, kicking, jumping about, and giggling the whole time.  My husbands decides it's time to get out of bed and start the coffee (boy do I need it!). 

"Geeeeee" she squeals as she discovers a free zone, immediately scoots over to his side of the bed and tries to dive over and grab anything she can off that side table.  I hop up and scoop her back, tickling her belly so she doesn't get too upset at the failure of her quest.  Up into the air she goes, we head into her bedroom to change her diaper.  Changing diapers is quite a challenge these days, she would much rather be exploring than sitting still for anything especially something as boring as diaper changes. Out into the kitchen so I can get started on her breakfast.  She doesn't eat much breakfast this morning, which is a little odd for her.  Not long after that she makes room in her belly, off to the change table again.  She plays on the floor downstairs for a bit, oops we need another trip to the change table.  Okay, so that's pretty much how my early morning went because I changed a third poo diaper before 10 am, I think we now know why she didn't eat much for breakfast, because she was full.  Snack for her is to nurse when she is done with that she is starting to get tired and goes down for a nap shortly after 10:00 this morning.  By the time she wakes up we are starting to think about lunch and getting it started so she plays in her highchair, I throw a few cheerios her way every now and then to keep her happy.  After lunch today we pack into the car and head into town for some shopping.  She really enjoys shopping, so many things to see and watch.  About the only thing she hates about shopping is getting into the car, so I try and do as much shopping as I can in one place.  Three stops is about her limit for car seat in and out, any more than that and I have to do the funky rattle dance (okay, do the buckles up as fast as I can before she notices).  After we get home, she gets another bum change (only wet; phew!).  Since she is fussing again I try and give her a soother in order to get her down for another nap, but she will have none of it, which tells me she wants to nurse.  Take her downstairs to the couch to nurse, wasn't really thinking because she nursed but she was really distracted by her sisters and was cooing and giggling with them.  I put her down on the floor to play since she seems happy again,  She is practicing pulling herself up, not getting very far today but she is having fun trying.  Don't know how, but we forgot about the afternoon nap and she's kinda showing it now, (oops) but it could be hunger too.  While getting dinner ready she has gotten really fussy.  I finally have her plate ready but she slaps the food away (either she is poopy again or too tired to eat).  Off to the change table again, there is a messy bum and when I open the diaper I discover why she was so upset, red hot cheeks of fire are staring back at me.  My husband distracts her while I try and clean her as gently as possible and coat her in a heavy layer of bum cream, diaper back on as loose as I can.  She is now ready to eat her dinner with enthusiasm.  I get a nice bath ready for her, hopefully it will help soothe her bum too.  She has a blast in the tub, splashing and rolling all over, clean her up, let her play for a bit.  Getting her back into a diaper and pjs is a bit challenging tonight, probably from being overtired.  Time for bed, she falls asleep nursing tonight (which I don't really like, oh well).  Hopefully our sleep will be better tonight (fingers crossed). 

Never let them see you cry

My 6 year old got pierced ears yesterday. She has asked me about them for quite awhile, many of her friends have them. She went to a birthday party and in her loot bag was a pair of earrings which she really wanted to wear, so I offered to take her in. She was extremely nervous and scared of the pain. She probably would have back out but the people doing the piercing tricked her and it was done, she loved them so much she didn’t even care about the trick.

Today she was roughhousing with her sister and an earring came out.  She comes running to me with her earring in hand.  I didn’t help matters the way I reacted but my mind starts racing, shoot!  How the heck?  Knowing how hard it was to get the damn things in in the first place. I try to put it back in and she screams in pain, try again she cries before I even get it a little bit in. I give her some Tylenol and put ice on her ear. She wouldn’t even let me try to get it back in. 

"Just throw them in the garbage!" she wails

"I spent a lot of money on these" I say and I try and explain that I would appreciate it if she would just let me try and see if it hurts at all anymore.

"No! I just want to throw them out!" she sobs. 

I tell her that she’s not taking the other earring out and she will be walking around with one earring until she can afford to pierce this ear again herself. That doesn't even motivate her. Overwhelming feelings of failure consume me into tears. How could I, a woman who could win the 'cheapest witch award' raise such a spoiled selfish brat? Okay that's a little extreme, I know she's just being very stubborn.

I feel sick about the money I’ve wasted on this bad decision. I feel guilty about the fact that I sort of forced this on her, since I felt obligated when the store had the guns loaded, set to go and for us to walk out the earrings would have been wasted. I feel selfish about the fact that I expect her to ‘suck it up’ and take the pain while I reinsert this damn thing so we don’t have to, waste money and go through this all over again. (If she's willing to pay for it should I really care??)

She comes up to me later and says “I’m sorry mommy, I really wanted to try, but I’m just too scared of the pain.” Hum..not sure what to make of that yet, could it be true, could her fear of pain really outweigh her love of her new earrings? 
She tiptoes around me the rest of the day, obviously distraught over the tears she has witnessed.

It's hard not to laugh

So it's been a busy couple of days and the kids haven't been getting to bed on time so they are a little cranky, to say the least. This morning at breakfast my husband makes pancakes at our 3 year old's request. She wanted one ‘as small as her head’.  My husband is very creative and makes her a flower shape pancake 'as big as her head' and she loves it, he gets a smile. He puts the syrup on it and proceeds to cut it up for her.  She has a fit "I don’t want it cut up!" and on and on. 

After she carries on for awhile my husband takes her by the hand goes to her room and tells her when she is ready to behave she can come out. After a minute or so I go in to calm her down and explain that she won’t be able to eat the pancake unless it’s cut up, we come to an agreement that she eats this pancake as is and the next one won’t be cut up. She finishes this pancake and asks for another.  My husband puts it on her plate, dresses it up and leaves her to it. 

She takes one look at it, touches it with her fork and says "Cut up please"...OMG!...I had to laugh.

Later my 3 year old is getting in the way of her older sister (who is also having a fit about cleaning the toy room, but that's another blog).  I ask her to come to the bottom of the stairs so I can talk to her without yelling. She yells for me to come downstairs (I don’t think so) I explain that I am busy and have my hands full and could she please come here.  I start the 'count' but before I even get to 3 my husband has had enough, he goes down, gives her trouble and tells her to get upstairs. She comes up to me bawling (she's very sensitive and does not like to get into any trouble)  

"Why didn’t you come when I asked you to?" I ask.

(sniffle, sob, sniffle) "Because I was busy too."....OMG!....it was hard to stifle my laugh.

So we are eating lunch and my picky 6 year old does not like the sloppy joes daddy has made (big surprise, it's something new). My husband tell her that when he was little it was a big treat when his mommy made him sloppy joes. 

Without missing a beat she says “Why, were they a lot better than these?”...OMG!...that one would have made milk come out my nose if I was drinking.

While I'm putting my 3 year old to bed she falls asleep during our story.  I kiss her gentle and she wakes up ever so slightly and quietly mumbles "Mommy, I'm hungry" ...awww...that made me giggle.  It's something I hear from her all day long and she always says it to me in bed.

"Will you play with me?"

My 6 year old is a social butterfly, she loves to play with her friends and she loves to make new friends and play, play, play.  She is having a hard time with the summer break and having no friends available, since most of her friends are at daycare or off doing summer camps and she is stuck at home.  She's tired of playing with her sister, she wants someone close to her own age or even older.  She really wants to play with me, but unfortunately she wants to play with only me.  She doesn't understand that to leave her 3 year old sister out of the game is unfair.  Not to mention that I'm usually busy with feeding, changing, or holding a baby.  When I'm not doing the above mentioned things I'm usually making a meal, serving a meal or cleaning up after a meal.  When I do get the baby down for her nap, since they tend to be so short I try and take this time to do nothing.  Most days I do take advantage of nap time to get some stuff done around the house but the past couple of days I don't feel like doing much of anything.  When she sees me sitting on my butt, to her it's an opportunity for me to play with her.

"No honey, not right now"

I know it hurts her feelings and I hate that, it makes me sad/guilty.  But I know playing with her will bring an argument, because her younger sister will want to play too (as she has the right to do).  So we will have to alter whatever game my 6 year old wants to play because it's going to be something that younger sister cannot really do, and my 6 year old will be disappointed because she is not getting to play the way it's suppose to/how she wants to play.

I really enjoy going on walks or bike rides with the girls.  We went out the other day with the camera to take pictures on our adventure that was great.  The beach is fun, but I like to have my husband along for extra hands and eyes that are needed with our very brave 3 year old.  I took them to a park with a splash pad and they had a blast (until the &$%# ice cream truck came and all went to ...well that's another blog).  I just don't have any desire to get down and play barbies or pet shop with her. I have a hard time with house to since the whole time she is telling me what to do and what to say.  Should I feel guilty?  I'm not sure?  Pssst....That's why I gave you a sibling.

Molly Maid

I cleaned the house a bit today, although you'd never know it to look at it.  I feel a bit like Hansel & Gretel dropping bread crumbs only to have little birds picking them up behind them, leaving Hansel & Gretel lost in the woods.  Only in my house I'm the birds cleaning up and Hansel & Gretel are my kids and everything is in reverse, leaving me to feel at a loss.  I've always imagined that if I had a house big enough, where there was a place for everything, then I could finally get the house clean.  But reality has hit me and I know it doesn't matter if it has a place the kids are going to take it out.  Take the shoe rack, shoes were starting to get out of control at the front door, (well of course, hello? girls love shoes) solution; a shoe rack, right?  It works great when the shoes get put into it, by me of course.  So today I'm tiding the floor and vacuuming, which has to be done frequently now that baby is really moving around.  When I get to the front door I put all the shoes away and vacuum.  Not even 1/2 hour later look over to see a pile of shoes on the floor. WTH? nobody has gone outside?  I ask my 6 year old why she pulled all of her shoes out?  Only to find out it was her sister.

"Why did you pull all of your sister's shoes out?" I ask 

"Cause"

"Because why?"

"Cause I wanted to."

"Why did you want to?"

"Cause I wanted to try them on."

Sigh, so simple, hard to argue with that.

"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!"

I hate yelling.  I hate the way it makes me feel.  I especially hate the look in my daughters eyes when I yell at them.  It's amazing how they can look me in the eye and I feel them seeing mama transform into this horrific monster with fangs and claws (although I don't blame them a bit).  It occurred to me that I have been yelling a lot lately.  Now with my 7 year old bored and missing friends and my 3 year old being a typical 3 year old I have my reasons, but maybe a bit too much, okay a heck of a lot too much.  

I'm sure if I asked my husband "have I been yelling too much?" he would give me that look, that same look I would get if I asked him if I looked fat in an outfit, the look that says if I answer this honestly I will get slapped.  So last night going to sleep I vowed that I will not yell at the kids tomorrow, come hell or high water I will not yell, DAMMIT!  

This morning went very well, everyone was getting along and if the kids did something wrong I calmly asked them to stop.  Now I did have to repeat myself a couple of times (firmly) but I was not yelling or getting an angry face on.  I did slip up once and kinda shouted (her name) when my 3 year old dropped the camera a 5th time. (Now mind you it is a kid's camera, but still it can only take so much, right? okay, oops! I overreacted)  I again yelled NO (or stop, not sure, I was panic ridden) when my 6 year old went to dash back across the road to claim her sisters lost flip flop without looking, but for safety reasons I think it's okay.  I was very proud of myself for not yelling when my 3 year old bit the finger of her baby sister so hard it left a crease for an extended period of time.  I felt the wrath rising within me, but I restrained myself and talked with her calmly and rationally after sending her into a timeout.  I even remained calm when my 6 year old took a fit and tried to refuse to come upstairs for supper.  I think the girls only had 2 major squabbles amongst themselves today, but we got those straightened around without too much difficulty.  All in all a good day, not sure if it had anything to do with my restraint or the fact that my girls were being good little angles instead of needful divas.  I really hope that our days continue down a calmer, more relaxed path.

Coming soon to a store near you

I’ve never really been too concerned about the amount of T.V. my kids watch. I would often enter the room with the T.V. on and look over to see them playing barbies, colouring, or playing with another toy of some sort. They are paying no attention to what is on, having lost interest after ten minutes into whatever show they had to watch. They play outside often, running around, bouncing on the trampoline or playing make believe in the playhouse. But now that my oldest is getting close to turning 7, I started to notice a big change when it comes to T.V. She now pays intense attention to what she is watching and will last through the whole program. Also she has started to try and rush through dinner hoping to get right back to the television. We are in the middle of a hot summer and I prefer they come in out of the heat of the afternoon to hide out in the cool basement and that may be a contributor to her new found attachment. Well the other morning she comes over to me on my computer and says “Mom, can we go to moondough.com?”

“What? Why?” is my response, dumbfounded by her request.

“Moondough never dries out, so you can use it again and again.” She smiles sweetly.

OH my, my daughter just sounded like a commercial, ok time to cut back.

....fast forward to today; this is the first day of my new 2 hour time limit on her television watching. I am really unhappy about having to do this since it is summer time and it’s suppose to be fun carefree times, isn’t it? The day did not go well, there were lots of shouts about how unfair I am and about how bored she is, the list goes on. We had a later than usual dinner tonight and she decides to go down and watch her last ½ hour of T.V. with her favorite new show. I set the sleep timer on the television and head back upstairs to put the baby to bed. I’ve never used the timer and I wasn’t sure I did it right but while I was putting child number 2 to bed I hear stomp, stomp, stomp up the stairs. She comes into the bedroom, sulking, “I wish you never gave me times on my shows.” We now have another hour until her bedtime, oh uh, what’s ahead for mama? Our usual routine for this time of night, she’s downstairs watching T.V. while mommy is up cleaning up the kitchen. Well with no T.V to watch she only has me to watch. At first I was getting frustrated with her being underfoot and asking question after question about nothing, but then she asks “can I help you?”
Help?, really!, "Sure, that would be great." So I get the sink ready for her to do the dishes that cannot be put in the dishwasher and she gets to work. We work together and get a whole whack of dishes clean, and had fun doing it. It was a wonderful way to end this dreadful day.

Two Scoops of Patience

So I wake up in a sleep deprived state after being up several times that night with a baby suffering with a bad cough. My darling 3 year old wants some breakfast so while I stumble around the kitchen trying to get the coffee ready with blurry eyes, she skips over to choose the cereal she would like to have that morning.  

She pulls out the box of Kellogs Raisin Bran and says “I want that one and that one” pointing to the picture on the cover.

“Umhum” was my response, obviously not truly understanding what she was saying.

I pour the cereal into a bowl and turn around to get the milk from the fridge, “No mommy I want that one and that one”, again she points at the box.

“That’s what you have honey, there are lots of raisins in here.”
 
“No mommy!” she shrieks, “I want that one and that one!”

I give up and move on to my coffee preparations since I do not understand what she is talking about and I’m too tired to have any patience for this. She is now sitting on the floor knees pulled up crying, mumbling about that one and that one. So after unsuccessfully trying to understand her again, I end it with pouring the cereal back into the box. She stands up now, with a slight smile (okay, so we are getting somewhere? But we have to move cautiously, we don’t want to wake the monster again.)

“Do you want this now?” I ask calmly, with hope.
 
She again points to the box but this time she is pointing at the top opening “I want some of that and some of that.”

Hallelujah, it all makes sense now. I understand the mind of my three year old. Because you see, there are two scoops of raisins on the cover and in order to get raisins from both scoops you must pour the cereal from both sides of the box. Something every mother should know.