I'm So Glad That's Over

It's Here!

No! Not the baby! Then I would have written 'She's Here!' or 'He's Here!'. No, the chair. The chair is here. See.




*I'd just like to say right now that my husband is the best because in that shot of me in the chair, he took it from above while he was on a chair because he thought it would be 'a more flattering angle'. And upon viewing the other shots taken from the floor... ugh. I totally agree. Thank you sweet husband!

And doesn't it look so comfortable? It is. I am so happy that it has arrived. One more thing ready. Next would be actually getting some baby clothes washed and put away. Yeah, that would be a good one.

Yesterday I had house cleaners come in. This is the first time I have ever experienced this. My coworkers had pitched in when I broke my ankle and bought me a gift certificate for five hours of cleaning. Since my mom was doing such a fabulous job of keeping the house in line I didn't bother using it until now.

Let me just say that it is very weird having people coming into your house to clean it. And weird to watch them clean things. The one girl polished my tea pot cover...

In preparation for their arrival I ran around like a nutcase getting things ready. What's the point, you ask? Well, I was mostly organizing and de-cluttering. And I HIGHLY recommend doing this for optimum satisfaction when having cleaners come in. I only used up 2 1/2 hours of the certificate and they'll be coming back soon for the remainder of the time. They did a great job but they didn't get to some of the things that I thought they would. Perhaps too much time spent polishing tea pot lids...

Also. I could NOT do this job. I am FAR to obsessive and would take WAY longer than I should to do my tasks. What I would do, I would do most excellently but I would still be fired for not knowing how to say on schedule.

So my house is mighty clean right now. And organized. And I'm trying not to be a total drill sergeant to Miss A and her dad. "Hey, pick that watermelon up off the carpet!" "Does this paper go in the recycling now?" It's just... I know how quickly things can get out of hand. Again. And I just want to try really hard to keep it this way at least until the baby arrives. Because after that... I know that nothing will stay this way.

Holiday?

Peter and I are on two weeks holiday. Peter and my boss (jack of all trades) have been working building a fence in our backyard since Saturday evening. They have been putting in long hours. Turns out that rocks get in the way of digging deep holes. Here is a photo in the early stages. It is nearly finished now so I'll post some more when I get a chance.



I don't know if it has anything to do with her second birthday or if it's teething or what but Miss A has been unbelievable lately. I have talked about her temper before. I WISH I could go back to those days. I have seen a new kind of fury and it scares me. For Real.

She Speaks!

We have moved on to sentences around here. Most of them start with “I want” and end in a variety of ways. For instance:

“I want DOWN!”
“I want Up!”
“I want juice!”
“I want bottle!” (b pronounced like a p)
“I want food.” (pronounced a bit like fuud)

But some other cute things she's been saying are “Again?” after every game we play or song we sing. And then I say “Again?” and she says “Okay!” The “Yee Haw!” thing I mentioned yesterday, she says this whenever she sees a horse or rides piggy back or now, when she's on the bike. She also says “What happened?” when she drops something on the floor or when 'something happens'. She also randomly says “Oh, Hi Mommy!” as though she just noticed I was there.



She also knows opposites really well. Down came first. Then we spent some time on the teeter totter saying “Up, Down, Up, Down” and she learned Up as well. I also give Elmo credit for that one. She learned Hot pretty quickly. Not she always says “Hot” when I give her a warm meal or when we get into the car. I'm not sure when and how she picked up Cold but she knows that one too. When I give her yogurt popsicles she'll say “Cold”. She also says it when we walk into the shade or when the wind picks up. The most comical one lately is “Push”. It is always said with an exclamation point at the end. She will say this whenever she's trying to get doors open, the fridge open or when dressing or undressing her babies. Lately she has started to say Pull as well. But “PUSH!” is still my favorite. I send my midwife a message the other day saying that perhaps Miss A would go into the midwifery profession as I often heard her say “Push! PUSH! All done.”

I also measured her height yesterday. She is measuring 34 ½ inches tall. After consulting the growth charts I see that she is indeed in the highest percentiles. It's weird Peter feels slightly saddened by this since he found being tall to be uncomfortable when growing up. I myself always wished I'd been taller. For her sake I just hope it serves her well in some way in whatever activities she chooses. I guess the career of jockey will likely be out of the question for her.



She continues to have no fear on the playground. She climbs almost anything without a moments hesitation. The other day we had to prevent her from following a ten year old boy who slid down a pole. She was convinced she could do the same. I hope she always has that attitude in life. “If he can do it, so can I!” For right now it's a little difficult to explain why that's not always the case.

The temper is as bad as ever although the tantrums seemed to have eased. Or I'm getting used to them or better at avoiding them. I referred to myself as a storm watcher the other day in regards to her and her anger being like the weather. I use that analogy a lot actually because I also have this theory that I treat her tantrums the way you treat a very bad storm. Take cover and wait for it to blow over. There is no stopping that kind of storm. And it's futile to get in it's way. It's probably something she just has to do every now and then to relieve the frustration that builds up inside of her. Whatever. It seems to work for us.

A Fair Time

So we took Miss A to the Fair on Saturday evening. We met one of my coworkers there whose son is four. He was her ride buddy. Although I had been excited about going I was also nervous. Was she going to have a fit after every ride? Was it going to be one big fight after another?

Thankfully, it was not. We did have some outbursts, yes. While standing in line for our first ride, the Carousel, she nearly clawed my eyes out. But once she got a taste for the sweet, sweet riding... we were pretty much good. Just as I suspected, she had no fear. We went on the swings together and then her and T her riding buddy went on a Jeep ride and she rode on the back of his motorcycle while he kept popping wheelies. In between smiles she seemed to spend a lot of time staring at the 'guts' of the ride and was trying to figure out how it all worked. I have my suspicions that she may grow up to be an engineer.







The Petting Zoo was also a hit. She loved the baby chicks and ducklings. She saw kittens for the first time which must have been shocking since our cat weighs nearly 20lbs. I think she enjoyed the baby goats or 'kids' the best. She ran around to each of them and pet them on their backs. Unfortunately I didn't seem to be able to catch this with my camera. This is the best I could do.



We each enjoyed this part the best. I because it was an enclosed area so I just had to make sure she didn't scale the fence to escape. And she enjoyed climbing on the hay bales as much as seeing the animals.

We also sampled some classic 'Fair Food' such as the hot dog and the mini donut. (Okay, I sampled many of these!) All in all we had a pretty fabulous time and her behavior was as near to angelic as it ever is. We captured almost everything on video but not enough on camera. It's difficult to capture people when they're whizzing by. And Miss A is pretty much always whizzing around whether she's on a ride or not.

I'm thinking if the Fair was so fun this year I can't imagine how much better it will be next summer.

Worn Out, Worn Down and just plain worn...

I don't think I've complained for a while. So I'm due for a good rant.

I am tired. So tired that I'm sick. You know when you sort of get a cold from sheer exhaustion? That's what I have. My nose is runny and I've been fighting off a headache all day.

This fatigue is the result of several nights of poor or just plain rotten amounts of sleep. I have chosen to believe that Miss A is teething. She has cut both of her first molars on the top despite the fact that there is no sign of her top cuspid (fang) teeth or anything on the bottom other than the two central incisors that she's had for months now. This chart tells you approximately when all of their baby teeth are supposed to come in. As you can see A does not follow this chart in the slightest possible way. The only reason I care is because the fact that her teeth are coming in all willy nilly means I had NO FLIPPIN' CLUE what teeth she might be cutting. Knowing might help to explain her crankiness and help me to respond accordingly. At the moment I'm assuming she's cutting both her top and bottom molars. Why? Because I can't imagine her being more irritable and miserable than this.

It seems to be affecting her appetite hugely. The kid who normally eats everything and anything can't even tolerate the old stand by foods that she'll ALWAYS eat. Actually, I think her appetite is fine it is the fact that eating hurts that causes her to eat less. Last night at supper I made one of her favorite meals. She ate an adequate amount but then when I gave her yogurt which is always well received she actually threw it on the floor when I wasn't looking. When I asked her “Did you throw your yogurt on the floor?” she replied “No.” I then tried some ice cream thinking it would feel nice and cold on her sore mouth. This should have been a huge hit. After a few mouthfuls she refused this as well. If the kid won't eat ice cream then there is definitely something wrong!

The worst thing of all is that due to my lack of sleep I also lack patience. She is more needy and demanding and I am less equipped to deal with her behavior. Doesn't parenting sometimes seem like the cruelest joke is being played on you? Like – Although you are totally unable to deal with the slightest thing, such as spilling a tiny bit of cream on the counter without bursting into tears, you have this toddler who is completely unreasonable and inconsolable to look after. I almost start laughing sometimes because I can't believe how ridiculous things can be. Those are the times when I feel like I must really be going crazy.

Anyway, I am crossing my fingers for a good nights sleep tonight. Which will also make this fatigue sickness thing disappear and turn me into a perfectly patient, happy, wonderful mama by tomorrow. Yup. That's gonna happen.

The Blur

Now that the warmer weather has finally arrived we have been trying to get out more. We have started taking Miss A to various playgrounds which are close to our house. On Sunday evening the three of us went for a stroll and had a play on this fabulous structure. As you can see there are plenty of things on which our little monkey can hone her climbing skilz. Her Grandma would have had about five heart attacks if she had been there with us. “Watch out! She's going to fall. Don't let her do that. Please make her get down.”






I had to set our camera to the sports setting and still I often was only able to catch her blurry body running by.




I think her expression in this photo pretty much captures the level of excitement that she has for this activity.



The only downside to doing this sort of thing with her is convincing her that it is time to go home. Her Dada usually has to haul her away kicking and screaming. Poor little psycho.

I am looking forward to setting up her little inflatable pool in the back yard. (A couple of months from now, it's still WAY too cold for that yet) I think it's going to be a blast. Who knows I may even get a tiny bit of a tan. That would be astounding.

Mama D's Journal (yawn...)

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. I don't really have anything to say. Well... nothing very interesting anyway. Yet I feel compelled to write SOMETHING, anything. So here goes.

Friday April 13th – Surprise party for Peter at our friends place. We had a BBQ and a DQ cake. Visited and played American Idol Karaoke Revolution. I was disappointed in my overall performance. I didn't dominate the way I did the last time we played. It was just okay for me, dog.

Saturday April 14th – After I finished work we finished the rest of our packing and headed to Winnipeg to stay with Peter's brother and family. Miss A periodically screamed for the last ½ hour of the drive nearly causing me to have an accident or purposely drive into oncoming traffic (just kidding). By the time we got there our nerves were frazzled but she wasn't finished screaming. We felt like terrible parents because we had zero patience left. Peter took A outside to play and all was well. We had a great supper and a really nice visit. Miss A refused to miss anything and wouldn't go to bed. She was very angry about being left in her playpen and wouldn't have anything to do with it. At 1 am I finally lay down with her in our bed and she fell asleep. I then snuck her back into the playpen where she slept the rest of the night.

Sunday April 15th – I went to the ABA while Peter and A stayed with the family. The hair show was pretty good. I was able to sit and listen to some really talented people and see some really cool hair. Miss A apparently had a really rough day because she was so dang tired. When Peter came to pick me up at the show she was already hardcore passed out in her car seat and proceeded to sleep the rest of the way home!

Monday April 16th – Peter's actual birthday. I arranged a babysitter and we went out for supper (gift certificate, YEAH!) and to 'Blades of Glory'. Yes, it was funny. We had a nice time. It was so great to have some time together.

Tuesday April 17th – Watched a friend's two kids in the morning, filmed a rap video with a friend in the afternoon. Yes, you read that right. I'm a bit scared, but knowing him it will turn out awesome. I will link the video when it is finished. Played volleyball in the evening and the other team killed us. At least I got to slide across the gym floor on my kneepads a few times.

That pretty much catches you all up. Looking back I guess I haven't had a lot of time to write either. Wake up! It's over.

Tantrum Update 2007

Thanks to all of you who gave me any advice on toddler tantrums. Especially to my friend KT who actually contacted her sister-in-law (Early Childhood Educator) on my behalf. I've been taking it all in and applying advice as necessary. Upon re reading my post I realized that I made myself sound completely incompetent which, although that's how I may feel, is not exactly accurate. I will give myself some credit and say that after reading more about how to correctly deal with tantrums I have found I'm doing a lot of those things already.

I do find that the majority of things I read or am told apply more to slightly older children. She's really too young yet to understand if I try to explain stuff to her for instance “We are running late so I'm going to carry you instead of letting you walk down the stairs yourself because it'll take forever!” or “You can't run around on that wet floor because you're going to fall and crack your head open!” or “You can't have that pen because you are going to scribble all over the door (again) or yourself.”

But I am learning what is likely to set her off and so I can try to avoid it. Except for those times when it's just something random or a tantrum has resulted in pure fatigue, which is sometimes unavoidable. I don't know if it's getting better or if I'm getting better at dealing with them. Or just getting used to them. Except that eardrum piercing scream. I could never get used to that.

If nothing else I have a lot of great ideas that are going to be awesome as she gets just a bit older. Such as setting a timer for when it's time to get out of the bath. That one will be awesome. Right now it would be all - Ding! “Hey, that was a cool noise! Let me have that thing so I can bring it into the tub with me, I won't break it. What do you mean I can't? But I want it... I need it! Give it to me!! WAAAAHHHH!!!”

Um. Yeah. That's pretty much how it would go down.

But I do try to explain things to her. Even if I think she won't understand, because really, she's pretty smart. And she'll catch on eventually. Just look at me. Once I was just a girl with a new baby. Now I'm a Mama.

Deaf by Thirty-Five

Things have been a little low around here the past couple of days. There's been some lack of sleep due to really bad headaches and teething. Temper tantrums (Miss A's) have been at an all time high. I've been asking people I know with children if they can feel their eardrums rattle when their kids scream, because I can. The general consensus has been “no”. Bad news for us I guess. I'm predicting that Peter and I will be stone deaf by the time she's five, if not sooner.

I keep asking myself if there is something more I could be doing. I've tried various things. Ignoring her, getting cross and raising my voice, being calm and trying to calm her as well. Nothing works. It's like a hurricane that you just need to wait out. To be honest I'd like to put her outside at these times and board up my doors and windows.

Of course I've been getting a lot of advise. Some I've asked for and some I haven't. I take this advice differently depending on my mood. The most promising thing I'm told is that she'll grow out of it. But then I ask, “when?” and no one knows.

I love her, she's a great kid but lately there have been days when I think “I just can't handle another tantrum, I can't.” But then she'll have one because she doesn't want to get out of the bath or because she doesn't want her jammies on or because life is just so HARD!!! And somehow I get through it and put her to bed. Then I play Unreal Tournament which usually makes me feel better.

So because I had an adequate amount of sleep last night and I'm in a pretty good mood I'm welcoming any advice anyone might have on dealing with temper tantrums. Specifically for 18 months olds. Reasoning with her just isn't happening yet. Ready...Go.