Knee Deep in Parenting

How is it that I could once teach, tame, and entertain a room full of 2 year olds, but the 5 year old, 2 year old, and 10 month old I have at home have me grappling for wisdom and control?

I spent most of the day reading one of the Love and Logic parenting books, feeling hopeful and overwhelmed at the same time. A lot of what the book teaches are the same things I used in the classroom- choices, choices, choices. I loved the advice "give control away when you don't need it, so you can get some back when you do." But man, it's hard. Coming up with two appropriate choices takes a lot of mental energy. Staying calm and positive takes a lot of energy. Keeping up with three different stages of development- takes a lot of energy. I felt a bit like a ping-pong ball today jumping from one issue to another, trying to remember and follow through with the 'best, most appropriate approach' for each child. And though there was still a lot of screaming, crying, and tantrums, I don't think any of it came from me. That's a major success for someone like me who is a natural yeller.

I'm hoping I can stick with it long enough to re-direct some of the chaos that's been brewing around here. Spencer is occassionally being a complete and total alien child, testing boundaries and throwing fits unlike anything I've ever seen from him before. But on the opposite end, he's memorizing songs and belting them out all day long. He knows all the words to "Riding with Private Malone", "The Fox", "The Ballad of Sally Anne", and "Fox on the Run". He plays them first thing in the morning and loves riding his bike by the open windows so he can sing along.



And Sophie- holy moly. That child is amazing in both the negative and positive extremes. Her imagination is incredible. Her verbal skills are getting better and better everyday. And her dramatic emotions are running wild. Her famous line right now is "I can't..." said with as much poutiness and despair as possible. She's recently entertained me with drawing sheep, building with blocks, and stacking magnets like the letters in "Chica, Chica, Boom, Boom".



And little ol' Carson is just soaking it all in, enjoying the ride, most of the time.

Purging the frustrations

I knew I needed to jump back on the blogging bandwagon slowly. I needed time to mull over recent events, decide which ones to feature and in what order. I needed time to come up with some catchy titles and witty observations.

When my mind started racing, and I had filled up a small notebook with several topics, I vowed to limit myself to one post per day. I figured that at that rate I could easily entertain my audience for at least a week and that would hopefully get me through my recent, yet unintentional, hiatus.

But there's one topic I need to get off my chest, right here, right now. Thank goodness for cribs (Carson), re-circulated toys (Spencer), and late evening naps (Sophie). Except that I'm just kidding about the late evening naps. Everyone knows what monsters children (and some adults, like myself) typically become when waking up from late naps. Anyways, I find myself with a few minutes to spare, and a forum for venting. So, I'm breaking my rule. I'm posting twice in one day, so that I can purge my emotions.

About vans. My van. The 'nasty' van. The almost-paid-off-and-falling-apart-by-the-minute- van. The van that I hate to admit I love. It's dying on me, a slow and expensive and painful death, and I find myself unable to cope with it.

I'm not going to bore anyone with the long list of previous illnesses suffered by my van and subsequently my bank account. I'm just going to tell you about today. As I was driving to work, I noticed the ABS light on. Knowing that the van leaks brake fluid, I'm familiar with lights on my dashboard. But its usually the light that says "Brake!". I grabbed the book, looked it up, and understood pretty much none of it. I put a call in to Jason, then my dad, my dad called the mechanic, called me, etc. At this point, we were hoping to add break fluid and having the problem go away. Taking it in for the diagnostic testing was next. I bravely drove home with the emergency brake clear and ready to be pulled if my breaks suddenly failed. Though I'm sure that chances of that are insanely slim, me and my over active imagination like to be ready.

Then I noticed that something didn't look right. One of the arrows wasn't moving- I caught myself wondering what MPH stood for. Ah, that's right, Miles Per Hour. As in, how fast the vehicle is moving. No worries, I'm almost home. I'll just follow the flow of traffic. Then I realized that there was no one in front of me. Little panic set in- but again, I'm not too far from home. About two blocks from 9th and I notice little green dashes instead of numbers filling the odometer. Again, over active imagination takes over and I start preparing for instantaneous combustion. Luckily I pulled in the driveway just in time. As in, just in time before the full on panic attack started. I have some serious fears of cars breaking down while I'm in them.

After a few frantic phone calls, we're planning on making an appointment to take the van in. Life happens, right?

But why does "life" always seem to happen in May. Right before vacation. The yearly vacation that we start counting down for the day after we get home. This is probably the 5th time in 6 years that we've had car issues in May, or whatever month proceeded vacation. Last year, it was Jason's tires. Year before that, we rented a car. A few years before that we had to drive my parents car. So maybe the gods are trying to tell me something...

I'm just pretty sure my parents won't let me listen.

To my One Faithful Reader

In my Inbox this morning, I found this message-

Hi! It's time for you to blog. (I don't have anything to read)

Aunt Suzanne

It made me laugh. It made me feel a little guilty. It made me feel important. It made me feel missed. It made me feel loved.

It was just what I needed.

I'll try to get right on that, Aunt Suzanne, I wouldn't want to disappoint any of my faithful readers any longer (which really just means you, and my parents, oh yea, and Rachael and Lisa cause I force them to read it!).

The Payoffs

This is what $5.57 got me today at Target. Missing from the picture, however, is an additional package of Chex Mix and a candy bar. We ate them before we got home.

After scouring many coupon blogs, clipping, cutting, and printing, I think I may have the hang of this. It's so not as easy as I thought it was going to be- but, when you come home with-

2- bottles of baby wash
4- hershey's bars
4- bags of chex mix
2- 4 pks. of easy mac
3- containers of clorox wipes

for less than $6, you feel pretty good.

Just don't ask me how I did it-
I still haven't quite figured it out.

Me and my Trekkies

Spencer

Sophie

Carson

Jason thought he was pretty funny when he found these.

Just Updating

This one keeps me entertained and frustrated all day. It's a pretty even rotation between the two emotions.

Entertaining:
When she goes around the house calling "Pippy pops (flip-flops), where are you?" in her sing-sing voice.
Watching her unload the silverware into the drawer every time the dishwasher gets unloaded.
Hearing her excitement when she finds "lips" aka chapstick, or "stickies" aka stickers.
When she tells me something or someone is funny and then chuckles to herself.
Watching her bounce on her horse, yelling "Hee Haw!"
When you ask her her name and she says, "Sopie!"
Asking almost every night to call her "Daddy-o" on the phone.
Making her show me all her 'owies' as proof that she really needs a band-aid.
She knows just about every animal and their noises. We struggle to come up with new ones to teach her.

My list could be really long, but I think I'll stop there.

Not so entertaining:
The constant, ear piercing screaming.
When she says, "Huh?" after everything I say to her.
Her inability to understand sharing. How much longer until that concept clicks?!
The fact that she's starting to bite. Ugh!
Her overly opinionated opinions.




This one amazes me with his mostly laid-back personality.
He's starting to come out of his 'constantly wanting held' phase and is wanting to be more involved with what his brother and sister are doing.
He loves to wrestle around with both of them.
He falls asleep anywhere, and even though his naps are super short, he usually sleeps from 7:30pm to 7:30 or 8 am.
He is insanely content being outside.
Now if I could just manage to keep his shirts clean and dry...He's horribly drooly and gets incredibly dirty just munching on crackers.



This one keeps me on my toes. Whether it's questions about our plans for the day, or how the weather is made, or who I'm talking to and what we're talking about. His memory and thought process is amazing and tiresome all at the same time.
Right now he's big into-
Speed Racer.
His new neighborhood friend "Driver" who's real name is Ezra.
Asking questions like, "How do we make metal? How is the weather made? Do we have ____ in our world? Are tornadoes good or bad? Why do we have tornadoes? How do people get in movies?" Most of these are followed by me saying, "I don't know, ask dad when he gets home."
Using the word 'guilty' for the way he feels after getting grossed out by stuff.
His Kidz Bop CD from McDonald's.
The song "Earth Angel". It plays at least 5 or 6 times a day.
Planning out his costume for next halloween, and his birthday party next April.



That leaves the two of us. Heaven help me if I ever really need glasses. That nose is all natural. How sad is it that this is the only picture taken of us in the last 3 months. The only other ones of me are with my kids, and I have none of Jason with the kids. I'm going to have to do way better than that! I've been dabbling a little bit with couponing (thanks to Danette), I think it's addictive but time consuming. This weekend I managed to get two things of mascara for $1.60! Jason is as crazy busy as ever with his two jobs and homework. We've both been loving the warm weather and are excited to keep working on fixing up the back yard. The kids love to be outside so we decided to go ahead and spend a little of our own money to create a nicer yard for all of us to enjoy. Now if the landlord will just come through with the fence he keeps promising.
I'm extremely grateful for all the hard work Jason does so that I can stay home with the hellions, and all the help he gives with the house and the kids. Just don't tell him I said that.