Maybe another day

Parenthood is so much harder than I expected it to be. Although I knew that I would have to guide my children through disappointment I never thought that I would feel it as acutely as they do.

Today Madeline was disappointed. The details of the situation aren't important, basically I told her something was going to happen and it didn't and it was totally out of my control to do anything about.

For the first time in her life I saw her truly disappointed. She curled up in my lap and quietly cried.

And to be honest, so did I.

No parent wants to see their child sad or disappointed. Today's situation was especially frustrating because there was NOTHING I could do to fix it. There was no equal alternative to offer her. Not much to distract her attention.

I wanted to fix this but I couldn't and I know that I won't always be able to. She has to learn that life can be disappointing. (I just choked up typing that last line, thinking about all of the times I've been disappointed and not ever, ever wanting my girls to feel that way.) I also know that I have to help guide them through these times and teach them how to deal with them. That is so very hard.

Talking to Kevin earlier today he said that he knew he was going to have to deal with disappointments as they grew up. Maybe they would be picked on, or not invited to a birthday party. We never thought it would start so very young. Yet there she sat, at three years old, in my lap with tears running down her face, truly disappointed.

I want to make it clear that today's events may not have been positive for us, but I am not angered by what happened. It's life and we move on. It was just hard to see Madeline react the way she did.

In all of this she taught me a huge lesson. After crying for a while we got up to get dressed for the rest of our day. She wiped her tears away (the ones I hadn't already taken care of) and moved on. She mentioned the situation only two more times during the day, and both times she ended her recounting with, 'but I'm ok. Maybe another day."

I, on the other hand, can't get the image of my little girl sobbing on my lap out of my mind. Yet again it is the student teaching the master*.

Maybe another day.

__________
*Let it be known that I do not in any way what so ever consider myself a master at parenting. I am actually far from it. Thankyouverymuch.


mg

Day 2

This may or may not become a daily tradition. At the age of two Madeline already has a very deep sense of her own personal fashion.


She did NOT get that from her mother.



Do you see those eyes? Those eyes are saying, "mom, can you put down the camera already?" I love those shifty little eyes!

mg

Parenting Lesson #5

Never send a two year old to their room to get clothes after saying,

"You can wear whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me"

unless you are really willing to accept the consequences of that statement.



I see a wardrobe change in the near future...

mg

Madeline is 2 years old.

Madeline is 2 years old.

Madeline is 2 years old.

That is my mantra right now. And I honestly mean right NOW.

Madeline has her moments but life in general with Madeline has been good. When there is a tantrum about snack, I can usually calm her quickly. When she freaks out because The Street has ended and she doesn't want to turn the TV off I can usually distract her. When it is time to go to bed (with the exception of nap time of course...) and she cries "I need you Mommy" I can detach and tell her I will be there in the morning she calms and goes to sleep.

Bath time, however, is never this easy. She doesn't mind hanging out in the bath. She has the coolest bath toys and loves pretending to swim. The problem comes at the end of the bath. She hates having her hair washed.

So today my mother bought us a new tool to aide bath time. It is one of those buckets with a soft rubber side to set on the kid's forehead to avoid water in their eyes. They call them shampoo rinse cups. They make so much sense. They should work.

That is unless you are a two year old and you won't listen to your mother's assurances that it won't get water in your eyes if you look up at the sky and instead look down just as water is running across your head which sends it into your eyes which freaks you out even more which sends you into a crying jag that lasts for at least three days and two minutes and only ends when you are scooped out of the tub still soapy* and wrapped up in a towel. Are you exhausted yet? I am.

I begin reasoning. I start with, if you just listen to me it will work. If you follow my directions you will be just fine. We can go back to happy fun bath time. Shoot, this could be part of happy fun bath time. You can do it yourself. I won't even help. What two year old doesn't want to "do myself"?

I was wasting my time. The tears continued. Why do I, as a pretty kid savy adult, keep trying to reason with the unreasonable? Why? Because I am too smart for my own good, that's why. I just want her to see the light. I just want her to know that I am not trying to flood her... just get her clean. I want her to be as smart as I think she has the potential to be. So again I revert to my mantra...

Madeline is 2 years old.

Madeline is 2 years old.

How do you wash your kid's hair? Do they hate it? Do you want to cry after bathtime? (cause tonight I do...) I am open to suggestions. I may not be painting the new nursery biege... but I will listen to your suggestions this time. Pinky promise.

___________

*What to know how I got the soap out of her hair? Still wrapped, very tightly, in a towel, I laid her on my lap, head over the tub and used said shampoo rinse cup. That did not go over well. Just in case you were wondering.

mg

Toddler lesson #4

Fork too.

I'm at lunch at my parent's house today. We were just sitting down to eat and Madeline asked for a spoon. When I came back without a fork she asked for a "fork too."


Now imagine a nineteen month old saying "fork too" over and over again. Yep, it isn't pretty. She was screaming this almost obscenity and my parents were laughing themselves out of their chairs.


Toddler lesson #4- You must listen very closely to be sure they aren't actually saying F-you!

Alternate post title: My First... obscenity!

mg

things I should have learned by now

I have said, more than few times, in the past few weeks that life would be calmer once my regular semester ended. I should have known that this was a guarantee that it would in fact get harder.

Yes, my regular semester classes are over. I have gone from 4 classes to just 1. My work load is drastically reduced.

Enter, Croup.

Yep, Madeline has croup. It is exhausting. For any mother out there who has had a child with croup, you know what I am talking about. I'll explain.

Sunday Madeline had a runny nose. Nothing strange really. By Monday afternoon Madeline was coughing a bit. But at 4pm she started a fit of coughing that lead to her choking on phlem and panicking. (Her and be both). She didn't turn blue or anything, but she would cough, which would loosen the phlem, which would make her choke, which freaked her out, which made her cry which made it harder to breathe.... you get the picture right.

I took her to the doctor and they said not to worry about it. Her lungs were clear by the time they saw her. Really early Tuesday morning (4am) she woke up with another fit of coughing and choking. This time I just brought her into bed with me because she was so freaked out... and frankly so was I. When I called the doctor they heard her cough over the phone (like a seal's bark) and confirmed that it was probably Croup. Of course there is nothing to treat croup, except rest, humidity and warm liquids. (Darn the AAP for banning decongestants for small children!)

Fast forward to last night. Madeline had been feeling better all day. She hadn't had a choking fit since Tuesday morning, and she hadn't had a fever all day. Things were looking up. I thought to myself, "I guess she'll go to daycare tomorrow and life will be back to normal." WRONG! As we were finishing dinner she was coughing so hard trying to get rid of some of the massive amounts of phlem in her throat, that she threw up. Twice.

It is at this point that I realized our washing machine isn't fast enough (do you know there are machines out there that wash an entire load in 9 minutes!), our water heater isn't big enough (I can't do a load of hot laundry and give Madeline a bath at the same time), and this cold/crupe can't go away soon enough!

She is feeling better today. But you never know. I know better than to say things are going to get easier... because I don't want to see what worse looks like...

So I am days behind in my house work, the cat has decided the tree skirt is her new bathroom, and I have a head-ache. Someday I will get back to my neglected blog and my even more neglected blog friends. I love you all, please come back. Please?

Until then, I leave you with... well nothing because I'm tapped, but maybe I'll have a photo or two this afternoon that I can share. (no promises though...)

mg

Toddler Lesson #3

Poo and Pooh may not be the same thing to you, but to a toddler there is no difference.

Toilet training is going well. So well in fact, Madeline 'Pooh'ed in the toilet this morning. And no, that isn't a misspelling.

For weeks we have been discussing, as best you can with an 18 month old, that pee and poop goes into the toilet. She has even been asking to sit on the toilet, and has successfully peed multiple times. Today, as Kevin was getting read to head to work she walked into the bathroom lifted up the lid and proclaimed "POO!" very proudly.

Milliseconds later her sweet Winnie the Pooh was hurled into the toilet. Gross. Boy am I glad the tag says its machine washable.

mg

I've been disqualified as mother of the year 2008*

Yep. It's official. I am out of the running.

Last night I was horsing around with Madeline before dinner and I swung her side to side by her arms. I was holding on to her wrists. She was smiling ear to ear but once I put her down she started crying. I had put her down because I thought to myself "I am going to hurt her I shouldn't swing her by her arms." Opps. I was too little to late.

I put her in her high chair because it was time for dinner anyway and that is when I noticed that she didn't want to use her arms. I called the Ped and they suggested waiting and watching but when I explained to them that she cried (like, CRIED) when I moved her arms, they suggested I take her to the ER.

At this point I had already been in tears. I hurt my baby girl! I was both sad and embarrassed. When they said 'ER' I lost it. Part of me doesn't even want to blog this story because of the embarrassment. I mean I feel like I totally should have known better. I felt as if I was going to get to the ER and the staff was going to report me to DFS- or have the hospital social worker in my room STAT. This is only exacerbated by the fact that my mother, in an attempt at humor, asked if they were going to hotline me. (I am smiling now Mom.)

So why do you ask am I blogging? I hope to save at least one other new (or experienced) mother the heartache of hurting their child like this.

So what happened? When we got to the ER the RN in triage (doesn't that word just make your skin crawl? Triage...) said it was most likely Nursemaid's elbow. The doctor confirmed that, but because she still wasn't using her arms after his exam he wanted to get some x-rays to rule out breaks. Three and a half hours, some tylonol and 6 x-rays later we got the answer that she had no visible breaks and that the nursemaid's elbow had likely resulted in elbow sprains. Yep, sprainS, it was both of her arms. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept through the night. As of this morning she is doing just fine. She is using both of her arms and I haven't noticed her in any pain or with restricted motion at all.

So after feeling totally guilty for hurting my little baby girl, I made her some promises. First, I would never swing her by her arms again. (I hope you all make this promise too.) Second, I would make her pancakes for breakfast. (Which I did and they were yummy. Mmmm... guilt pancakes...) And finally I think I may have promised her a puppy. (I think we might have to settle for a stuffed one though.)

*Alternate post title: My First... trip to the ER :(

mg

Putting frustration into perspective

Just when I thought I knew it all and I had it all figured out I am thrown a curve ball and am reminded that I am not really in charge here. Yesterday I blogged about what a frustrating day I had. God heard, and she decided to put my frustration into perspective.

So today started as any other day. I got up, showered, dressed and got Madeline up for breakfast. Bryan (BIL) came over to watch Madeline while I taught my morning class. Class went really well. (I love this class already. Sometimes classes jell together and the dynamics simply work. This class is one of them, but that is a topic for another post...) I left class and was on my way to pick up Madeline when I stopped at QT for a drink. Got back in the car.

It. Won't. Start.

I can't get a hold of Bryan, Kevin is at work, Elliot is in Illinois, Kathy is at work, all four grandparents are out of reach, I. Am. Stuck. The jumper cables are not in the trunk. So I go inside to see if QT has any. Of course they do, but I have to buy them. ARGH!!!! Enter Tom, my first good Samaritan of the day. He lived a few blocks from the QT and said he could run home to get jumper cables, which he did. He tried to jump the car without any luck. Thank you Tom.

Bryan calls my phone, wondering why I am almost an hour late and I tell him my tale. He is wonderful and comes and gets me. Thank you Bryan. He has an appointment in the afternoon so he dropped me off at my parents house so I can get my mom's car. (It has a car seat in it.) I feed Madeline lunch and head back to QT with socket set in hand to remove the battery and take it to an auto parts store to test it.

With Madeline on my hip I open the socket set (upside down, ARGHH!) and then have to try to figure out which one I need to get the battery out of the car. Enter Gary, my second Good Samaritan of the day. As he was walking into the station he asked if I could use some help. I don't know if it was the fact that Madeline was sitting on the filthy ground using a socket set as toys or the look of sheer bewilderment on my face that made him stop but I was sure glad he did.

Gary took out the old battery for me. He loaded it into the trunk of my mother's car. He waited at the QT until I came back from the auto parts store with a new battery (b/c when they tested the old one it was beyond dead). Then he put the new battery in my car for me. He even spent 15 min fussing with the battery to make sure it was secure. This total stranger spent 45 min of his day just helping me. Gary wouldn't even let me buy him his soda. I mean that is pure love for human kind right there. From the bottom of my heart, Thank you Gary.

So to recap I now have a working car! Yea! But I also have my mother's vehicle at the QT too. So I called Bridget, one of the bad aunts and she came and rescued me. She left her car and drove my mother's car back to mom and dad's. Then I drove Bridget back to her car. Thank you Bridget.

I left school at 10:30am. I dropped Bridget off at her car at 3pm. 4 1/2 hours.

And how is Madeline through this ordeal? She is an angel. She is hot, sweaty and tired but she doesn't complain. She just watched Gary as he worked. She sat on my hip and waved at the people coming in and out of QT. She was pacient and sweet. I am totally in love with her.

How was I? I was a mess. Ok, not really. I only really lost my cool once, when talking to Kevin on the phone. (One of the 10 million times I called him at work today.) I was actually frustrated. But I kicked into action and did what needed to be done.

What did I learn today? Yesterday wasn't that bad and as Kevin kept telling me, today could have been a lot worse. I am proud of myself really. Before I started this examination of how I deal with negative situations I would have started to look for more negative events in the course of my day. But today, with the morning's inconvience behind me, I was able to come home and relax and say honestly to myself, "this morning wasn't the greatest but I am going to make the best of the rest of the day."

I am learning. Today was a glass 1/4 full kind of day.

mg

Confessions of a Blog-a-holic

I will be the first to admit that my interest in blogs has quickly turned into an obsession. The blog list on the side bar is only a small fraction of the blogs I read every day thanks to Google Reader. (I love Google Reader!) I love how blogs give me a window into the lives of others that I have never met. Some people I have a ton of common interests and others I have nothing in common with but even that is interesting to me. I really should update my side bar, but that is a project for some other day.

Through reading other people's blogs I have found an real appreciation for my life. I have a wonderful and supportive husband who I love more now than I did even a year ago. (How can I not love a man who helped me create such a perfect little girl?) Which leads me to how lucky we both are to have such a happy and HEALTHY little daughter. I have been reading the blogs of two families that are going through some really unimaginable medical struggles with their children. I read about the surgeries, and doctors visits and I just thank our stars for all that we have.

Some days I don't feel so greatful. I focus more what we don't have. I guess you can say that I am more 'glass half empty' but every once in a while I do realize that we have been blessed with a lot in a short period of time. As we continue through this finacially difficult period of time (with me not working and the price of living climbing ever higher every day) I am reminded that it could be so much worse. We are clothed and fed and we are healthy. I pray for the families who are dealing with serious hardships right now and hope that I can learn to take each day and appreciate my life and my family.

mg

Toddler Lesson #2

Ear plugs might be a good investment during the toddler stage.

We have a couple of different babies in our house. Sometimes we get the sweet cuddly quite baby. Sometimes we get the laughing rambunctious silly baby. Sometimes we get the sleepy and sweet baby. This is the baby I have this morning.



Madeline is saying "ahla, ahla," because that is what she calls our cat Olive. At least I know she is progressing with language development right?

Off to start my day with three Ibuprofen and a cold compress.

Our little swimmer

Madeline is a wonderful little swimmer! Last week we started parent/child swimming lessons and Madeline loves it. On Wednesday Kev came along to take photos of our class. I think this week he will get into the water with us! She is loving the water and even let me get her face wet during our bath last night. We are making progress.

June 11

June 11

June 11

mg

My First...

Swimming lesson!

I have been dying to get Madeline into a swim class for the last year! (The APA says babies can swim as early as 4 months but my ped said it was ok at 6 weeks...) But all of the classes I found were too far away from home and way to expensive. (groceries or swimming lessons? Guess which one wins.) So when our local pool offered lessons this summer at like 75% less than I have seen them at any of the indoor pools I was all over it like brown on rice! (it is better for you by the way)

The weather held off and we headed to the pool. Madeline loved it!

I took my old kodak point and shoot digital b/c I didn't want to risk taking my fancy pants DSLR. I wasn't going to be able to watch it b/c I had a baby in the water!!! But Kevin is off on Wednesday, and he can come to class too. Then one of us can take photos of Maddy in all her swimmy glory.

For a funny and much more realistic post about children's swimming lessons click here. Then go here and read the two posts that come before that one. Classic.

mg

Technical difficulties

subtitled: &#@%# CAT!

So I would have loved to blog about the past few days. Show you photos of my darling daughter and talk about how wonderfully in love with her we are. But we have been experiencing some *issues* with our technology.

Kevin's computer is old. It is a great machine generally (he build it mostly himself) and it has some fancy components and features. Unfortunately I haven't been able to upload a photo to blogger with that machine for a month or so. Frustrating, but not the end of the world right?

Enter the cat.

Olive likes to chew on wires. We had the base for one of our old cordless phones run behind the couch a couple of years ago and when the phone wouldn't charge we discovered that it was because the wire had been chewed through. She doesn't like just any wire though. Just really expensive to replace wire.

Earlier this year I ordered a new charger for my laptop because the old one quit working. Olive's bad habit set us back $60. Since then, unless the computer is charging the cord is tucked away so she can't get her teeth on it. Or at least I though she couldn't. Friday I go to charge my laptop, which is the only computer that allows me to upload photos to blogger I might add, and guess what won't work? Yep, you got it. Upon further inspection I find teeth marks on the charger and I promptly want to throttle my darling cat.

So I guess this means that I will spend another $60 for a new charger and put this one under lock and key. Or at least in a drawer I am sure she can't open with those tricky little paws.

Until then, my blog might not have the same draw. I promise to be witty and humorous. But I am kidding myself if I think that is going to be enough. I know you all come for the photos. (Heck, I blog for the photos!)

ARGH!

mg

Toddler Lesson #1

Keeping windows clean isn't as easy as it seems.

March 20

mg