Sticking to my Guns

I will stick to the rules I laid out.  I won't give in just because it takes more time or to stop the whining.  I will remember that what I teach my daughter today forms who she will be tomorrow. 

These are the things I keep telling myself when I'm feeling tired or frustrated.  I've been working on teaching my toddler to put away her toys after she's done playing with them.  That also means cleaning up messes that she makes.  I have to say that some days this is easier to say then to do.  Sometimes I just want to pick them up myself instead of wasting the added 20 minutes or leaving them there for another day.
 

My reason, I'm too dang tired.  I'm going on 31 weeks pregnant with my second child and I'm also running this house solo for now.  The only thing that keeps me going is that I don't want my kid to turn into a horror like some other examples I see.  I love my child enough to know that the rules and boundaries I place today benefit her in the future.  It also helps knowing that I will have help in a few weeks when my family comes.
 

This is my parenting style and I just needed to remind myself why I'm doing this.  What about you?  What are you having trouble with?  What lessons are you currently trying to enforce in your household?

"I Miss my Daddy"

My husband is on the big "D".  So I've been the mommy and the daddy for the past six months.  All military families deal with this, it might not be the lifestyle we choose but it's a lifestyle we learn to deal with.  My almost 4 y/o has been doing pretty good so far.  We have been able to hear her daddy's voice every once in a while and she understood that her daddy was working on his ship.  The past week has been extremely difficult for both of us.  She's been telling me every night before we close our eyes for the day "I miss my daddy.  I want daddy to go home."  The past three nights she's been crying herself to sleep telling me "I want my daddy. I don't like his ship anymore. I want daddy to go home."

 At anytime before he was selected for chief I had the open of calling his department so he could talk to her for a few minutes.  No, I'm not one of those wives that call all the time or even on a frequent basis.  However, I was fortunate enough to have a hubby work in a field that has access to phone, if I really need to get a hold him.  It helped keep most of the meltdowns at bay and I credit that to how long she's been okay with the big "D".

Now that he's busy with chief training we haven't really had many conversations with him due to his schedule.  I think that combined with the length of time he's been gone has taken its toil on my toddler.  I could see signs that she needed her dad even before this past week.  She would cling to my brother in law, our baby sitter's husband and the other day she hugged the delivery guys leg.  (That freaked me out!)

Last night she was finally able to hear his voice.  She took over the phone and told him all about her day, all her little owies and how much she missed him.  It didn't take much just the sound of his voice.  I don't doubt it was hard for him to hear her whisper "I miss you daddy. I love you daddy. Can you come home and play with me?"  I was certainly tearing up hearing their conversation.  Now we're just counting down the days.  Are you a military wife?  How do you deal with long separations?

Sushi Splurge

Our next stop today was lunch.  What better way to spoil ourselves than sushi? I've been craving sushi for a couple of days now and my little spot is N'joy sushi in the Mill Creek Shopping Center.  We've been going there for the past two years and they already knows us pretty well.  They've seen my daughter grow up and know how we like our food. 

My daughter always eats well when we go there and I wasn't disappointed this time either.  She stuffed herself on the child's portion of teriyaki chicken and started feeling the effects of food coma before I got her into the car.  This was the easiest nap time in the past two weeks. She was out like a light before I even pulled out of the parking lot. Thank you N'joy!

Toddler Antics

Today it's the start of my weekend!  You see, my crazy schedule isn't a typical 9-5, Monday to Friday job.  I have the pleasure of working weekends and holidays.  Fortunately, for the rest of the population healthcare is never closed.  It is a 24 hour profession.  

I worked this past weekend so today is my Saturday.  I wanted to get out of the house with my little girl so we're starting our day people watching at Starbucks.  She's been picking her own outfits and today is PINK.  She's head to toe pink and even choose a pink treat for her special treat. Overhead, we're listening to music from the 60's and she just starting dancing in the middle of the room to the music much to the delight of the rest of the patrons.  My cute, silly, outgoing girl even got a round of applause afterwards.

What a great start to our morning!  How it's yours going?

Bad Words

It seems that I find myself surprised with all the milestones my little three year old makes every day.  She grasps concepts I thought were too complex for her age.  Recently she showed me that she knows some bad phrases and understands how to use them in the correct context. Yesterday I scolded her for kicking my chair and overheard her say "Jesus Christ".  After letting her know that isn't something nice to say she waited a few minutes and whispered it to herself.

On one hand it was frustrating to deal with correcting her bad language.  On the other i was proud that she was able to use the phrase in the right context.  Mind you, it's not something i want to hear again.  I know kids her age repeat words they hear, but do they understand context at this age too?

At what age did your child begin using phrases in the correct context?  Was it ones you didn't want to repeated? 

Cheese with that Whine?

I don't know what changed.  Whatever it was it started 2-3 weeks ago.  My two almost three year old has a consta-whine.  She can turn it on at the drop of a hat for no reason at all.  It's almost as if the more her vocabulary grows the less she uses it and just whines for what she wants.  There aren't even words mixed in, it's just a low level "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........."  The more I ask her to use her words or try to guess what she wants the more she mumbles and whines.

Has this happened to any other parent out there?  Has your toddler taken a step forward in development just to jump back down the cliff?  Let me tell you that at times it have to just remove myself to scream.  No it's not that bad.  The whine to me is like nails on a chalk board and can get frustrating because I know very well that she has the vocabulary to ask for what she wants and she just doesn't.

What is your experience?  Does this stage last long?  Will it end?  Please say it will end, gah!

Mommy's Bed

My child knows that every night she has to go to sleep in her bed.  If she wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare she can climb into mommy's bed for some cuddling and to chase away the monsters.  Most nights when the bed routine starts she asks nonstop to sleep in mommy's bed.  Well, she doesn't say it in a full sentence she just repeats "mommy's bed?" over and over and over again.  On rare occasions when I just want her to fall asleep right away or I want some extra cuddling time she can sleep in my bed.

Tonight was one of those nights.  Bad mommy pushed back bed time too far.  For some reason I was in a cleaning kick and decided to tackle a few more moving boxes from the mountain that was known as my garage.  When I finally looked at the time it was close to 7:30pm and I still had to get her dinner and a bath.  This time when she started in on mommy's bed I said okay.  This girl was so excited and scared I would change my mind that she wouldn't take to step pass the doorway into her room to take her pillow and dolly to my bed.

I didn't have to do anything extra before she knocked out either.  I just plopped her in my bed, kissed her good night and gave the dolly to her and left the room.  I was walking in and out picking up toys, cleaning up a little and setting out clothes for tomorrow.  Not one peep the whole time.  I love nights that bed time isn't a fight, it's a breath of fresh air.  I even had the time to write this post before I have to go to bed myself.  I guess mommy's bed is a special place after all.

Parenting Compliments

As a parent you question how you are raising your child and you hope at the end of this journey your child grows up to be a well adjusted, contributing member of society.  My child didn't arrive with an instruction booklet or a pair of glasses the see into the future.  So I don't know if what I'm doing now will result in a positive thing or negative thing.  My daughter is going to turn 2 in two months and she is a Toddler with a capital "T".   There are days that she makes me so frustrated that I need to take a moment to myself to regroup.  While other days my eye get misty and my heart skips a beat because I feel so thankful I'm her mommy.

Since the "terrible twos" and the "toddler tantrums" have made an appearance in our household I've tried different tactics to see what works best with my toddler.  I definitely did not want my daughter to think it was okay to scream, whine, or throw a tantrum to get what she wanted.  I made it a point from the very beginning, that she had to say "please mommy" if she wanted something.  As her vocabulary increased I helped her through simple sentences to ask for what she wanted.  For example, "More milk please mommy." 

These days she's been using the whine/scream/tantrum tactic first and it's been tough to shake her from that bad habit.  Now in the face of all that screaming I keep saying, "You have to use your words, mommy doesn't understand you when you scream like that" until she gives me enough hints to figure out what she's screaming at.  Once I figure out what she wants and she starts to calm down then I prompted her to stand in front of me, cross her arms and use her words to ask mommy nicely for what she wants.  I tell her "It's NOT okay to scream at mommy like that, when you want something you need to use your words and ask mommy nicely."

I really think whatever I'm doing is really working.  We were at that vet today and she started whining.  We went through the steps, stand in front of me, cross her arms, ask nicely, and follow up with thank you.  The vet gave me the BIGGEST COMPLIMENT on my parenting.  She said she's never seen a child with such good manners.  She really liked how I handled it and even said she wants to use that when she has children.   How awesome is that! Toddlers are tough and I'm sure I have more white hair from the stress but that little pat on the back gave me the validation that I just might be doing the right thing after all.  :)

Have you received any comments that made you feel the same?  What were they?  Have you given anyone else positive parenting comments?  What did you see to make you share that compliment?

Dare Devil

Toddlers are climbers, jumpers, runners and miniature daredevils.  Fortunately, they approach each new adventure with a fearless attitude.  How else will our mini me's master all the things their bodies can do.  On the other hand that fearless attitude can put our hearts in our throats each and every time we see where their antics leads them.

My little climbing, jumping, running daredevil is no exception.  In the past two days she has fallen on her head at least three times.  Once was from jumping on the couch while spinning and she ended up flipping off it.  Another was from dancing right off the coffee table right onto her shoulder and head.  This time she decided to body slam the dog from off the couch and he moved just in time to save himself.  Izzy wasn't so lucky.

I don't know about you but I could talk until I turned blue and it wouldn't make a difference to my crazy kid. Actually, I feel like an old fuddy duddy for telling her she can't jump on the couch.  I LOVED jumping on the couch and my bed when I was a kid.  Sigh, what to do?  I'll probably just try to relax until the crying starts.  All bets are off if she starts running around with a knife or attempts something that will land her in the hospital. What has your kind done recently that your heart practically stopped when you saw them?

Little Girl Bike

I can't decide when to purchase Izzy her first bike/trike.  Once in awhile we make a trip out to Toys R US to play.  It gives her the opportunity to play.  We make a two hours of it just to window shop and try things out.  The last time we were there was the first time she wanted to sit on a trike and was able to pedal around the store with it.  I'm sure there are some at her Day Care but until that day I didn't even know she knew how to use one.  She had a little problems steering but I'm sure she'd get better the more she played with it.

So I'm left with the question of when I should get her one.  The one she rode was the smallest Radio Flyer which only last up to age 3 for the weight limit.  She's still a little on the small side but I wouldn't make any sense to get her something she could out grow in the next year.  The store didn't carry the next size up tricycle and the smallest bicycle with training wheels was too big.  Her legs didn't even come close to the petals.

 I've been looking at some reviews online and I've decided on the Radio Flyer Girls Classic Dual Deck Tricycle in Pink.  It's not too expensive I just don't know if she's tall enough for it yet.  WA is only blessed with a few months without consistent rain so I want something she can use right away.

Any other moms buy a tricycle for their little one?  Any recommendations?  Izzy is about 26 lbs and 35 inches.