Long Time

I haven't blogged in almost a year. I have no big reason for this. There was no life event that caused me to stop posting and, likewise, no similar event that caused me to return to it other than the realization that I feel better when I am writing. That and the fact that I like going back over past entries and remember various events that might otherwise be forgotten. I am regretful that I have missed that opportunity this passed year. We have had so many wonderful experiences that did not get documented as I would've liked.

Alex's first trip to Savannah

Ben's 2nd year of Preschool

Halloween with Cinderella and Iron Man

Alex's 1st Birthday!

Our Family's first trip to Disneyland!

So many important things and probably so many more that went unnoticed, unobserved. I can't promise that I will blog every day or that I will be able to record every milestone but I have decided to try harder. To carve out time for myself to write about whatever is happening or nothing at all. 

Square peg, round hole

This week was VBS week which I love. Every year I get anxious and stressed right before the week starts and I get incredibly nervous all week about making sure I know my script and everything goes according to plan. And every year, right before it starts and I am at the peak of my stress, I say something like "Next year, I am not going to sign up for this. It's too crazy." and every year after it's all over and the kids have gone home and the decorations are put away, I start thinking about next year's theme and how much fun it will be.

But this year was different. This year, I was not in charge of a station. This year I was a crew leader. This was Ben's first year of VBS. And I was his crew leader. I cannot begin to describe my excitement. I have looked forward to this week for months. I potty trained this kid with VBS in mind, knowing that he had to be potty trained if he wanted to participate. He also was just a teeny tiny bit shy of the age cut-off for registration. But strings were pulled and exceptions were made.

And this week was...well...awful. It was just awful. I almost want to start crying again as I write this because it was so stressful and I felt like such a terrible parent that I couldn't get my OWN child to behave in my group. Finally, today - on the last day, just forty-five minutes before the finale, I reached the end of my parenting rope and I called his dad to come and get him. I then spent the rest of the morning silently berating myself for not being more patient. For not sticking it out longer and trying harder with him so that he could've finished the week with his group.

Over a bottle (or maybe two) of wine, I shared my anxieties with my fellow moms who were also VBS volunteers and they each consoled me and validated my decision to send him home. They also assured me that they would NEVER be group leaders with their own children for this exact reason and that children always behave worse for their parents than they do for strangers. And one of them said to me "it might just not be his thing".

I've been turning that around in my head all evening. How do you know? How do you know what their "thing" is? We had a similarly distressing experience this year with T-ball. Again, I was so thrilled to take Ben to his first practice. I had talked to him about it repeatedly after we registered. We practiced in the backyard. He seemed really excited at his first practice. At his second one, he said "I don't want to play anymore".

Maybe it's his age. Maybe he's just not developmentally ready for activities that involve a lot of structure and following directions. His dad says he's an introvert. Which makes his extrovert mom extra-anxious. I start to obsess about nature vs. nurture and wonder how much of our skills and preferences are inherited from our DNA and how much can be shaped or learned. Neither my husband nor I are athletic. My husband is more likely to know the names of the aliens in the Cantina in Star Wars than the name of any player on a football or baseball team.  This has always been fine with me. In fact, preferred by me. I grew up in a competitive family and was always more comfortable with my nose in a book than chasing a ball around the soccer field or (in my dad's case) the golf course. 


But as a mom, I start to worry that my own lack of athleticism and my husband's lack of interest in a majority of social activities has combined to create these preferences in my son. I agonize over whether it's better to let him stay home in his shell or push him to do more and try more. I obsess about the coming year at school and whether he will respond well to structure and whether we will find something besides super heroes that are interesting to him. And then I remind myself that he's only three. I take a step back, a deep breath, and I give myself a break. 

The Potty Diaries

After months of dancing around the potty training issue, crossing our fingers, praying that our preschooler would just magically walk up to us some day and say "Yes, Mother and Father, I do believe that I may need to use the facilities", we have finally had to bite the proverbial bullet and start official potty training.

Initially, sometime last summer when we thought it might be coming up soon in our toddler's development, we did what all over-educated, over-zealous parents do. We started reading lots of books about potty training. So for the last several weeks/months we have done multiple potty training techniques in the hopes that something would "stick" and we would somehow have potty trained our child without much effort. We had done the M&Ms, the stickers, the stickers that go on a chart and lead to a reward, and the training pants. We had done variations of potty apparatus - the singing potty chair (no joke), the padded seat, the stool, and the plain ol' potty all by itself. Needless to say, nothing has really clicked for our boy.

He'd much prefer to pee in his diaper and continue playing on the floor than to be bothered sitting on the potty. I'm told this is common. But he's three. And I feel like he has ALL these reasons to be potty trained. Or maybe it's just me who has all these reasons. You know, because diapers are expensive, because we have all these activities this summer, because I hate our diaper genie, because most of our friends kids are around the same age and potty trained, etc. And also because it's clear to me that he knows HOW to do it, he'd just prefer not to.

So this weekend, we decided to celebrate the National holiday by learning to use the potty. I found a book ("That's How I Roll by Rachel Jacques") that talks about wearing cartoon underwear as an incentive for using the potty. Essentially, you start out with super cool cartoon underwear and explain that Spiderman (or whoever) hates to get wet or dirty and if they get wet or dirty they have to come off and you have to wear plain underwear until after a certain time when you can try again. There's a few more detail than that but that's the technique in a nutshell. I knew the cartoon underwear would be a winning enticement for Ben so we decided to give it a try.

Day 1 - So far so good. We wore Mr. Incredible underwear all day long. Many trips have been made to the potty and multiple M&Ms have been earned. We even wore underwear at nap time and stayed dry. This may or may not be attributable to the fact that we also did not sleep during nap but just laid in our bed talking. The only negative so far is that no poop has occurred. There have been several times when it seemed like we were on the verge and would run the kid to the potty but nothing would happen. It's somewhat unclear at this point if this is because he doesn't want to go in the potty or if he is physically stopped up. Currently he is in bed in his undies and we are crossing our fingers to make it through the night without a major incident (though I think this is highly unlikely given it's our first night without a diaper - EVER!).

Day 2 - Woke up soaked. Ben was discouraged. Poop made an appearance finally and NOT in the potty. Mommy was discouraged too. But we stayed dry all day and managed to make a few pee stops and stay in our Super Hero undies once we got them back after nap time. We also slept during nap and managed to stay dry!

Day 3 - Woke up soaked again. Ben appears surprised by this every time so I think he must be a heavy sleeper. Dry again almost the whole day. Called Grandma and Nana and Poppa to share our successes and reap the rewards (Spider-man toy is on it's way in the snail mail). Put in time out for misbehavior and while in time out, he peed his pants. Took him upstairs to change and set him on the potty. While I was getting dry clothes, he pooped! Finally discovered what may be the secret to pooping on the potty = privacy! Who would have thought?

At the end of the weekend we had only had two actual accidents. I would call us "potty trained". He has even told me when we were out that he needed to use the potty. But, he still cannot stay dry at night. The book says to wait a full week until going back to pull-ups so I think we will keep trying. I am not sure what to do if dryness doesn't happen though. He's so "anti-diaper" at this point and SO proud of his success, I am sure it would feel like a step backwards to put on a pull-up.

UPDATE: Today (Thursday) we woke up dry! Out of the blue! I hope we can keep it up. It will be a week on Saturday and I am kind of tired of washing sheets twice daily.

I hate school

I didn't used to hate school. I used to love it. I was an honor roll student who loved my classes and most of my teachers. I loved reading and learning. I loved the sense of accomplishment from studying and doing well on exams. I particularly enjoyed knowing the information and having the correct answer when I was called on.

I wanted my son to love school as I did. I wanted him to have great experiences. To make friends and to learn all kinds of new things. When the school year started out, that seemed to be the path we were on. But as the year progressed, things took an odd turn. He stared to become less excited for school. Less interested in the activities. In making friends. In seeing his teachers. In leaving the house.

Thinking back to the beginning of the year, when Lightening McQueen was the object of our obsession, I remember him saying "Jacob and Hank say these are stupid cars". I remember my ire at these little boys for calling something my son loved so dearly "stupid". I remember my husband reassuring me that it was probably a comment taken out of context and that it might have been unrelated to the beloved Mater and McQueen but, in fact, other cars entirely. So, I brushed it under the rug and tried not to obsess about it too greatly. 

Over the year, things changed. The kids in his class changed - some left and new ones came. The dynamics changed. My son's love of Lightening McQueen dissipated and morphed in to a love of all things superhero. I also noticed a change in behavior. Along with the third birthday came more limit testing, more button pushing, more aggression. I was told at school on a few occasions that he had hit another kid. My initial reaction was "normal 3 year old boy" and "it's a stage" and "he'll grow out of it" like so many other stages. But in the last few weeks, getting him to go to school has been harder and harder. It has become obvious that he is having conflicts with these two other little boys. It is unclear whether he is the instigator of these conflicts or if they are, but there is definitely something happening. My little buddy who was so secure and self-reliant has become clingy. He has started asking us to stay with him when he goes to bed at night. He has started waking in the night and calling for us. He cries when we take him to school and says "I hate school" and "I hate the other kids. They are not my friends". My heart broke for him.

I blamed the superheros. Wrong or right, I saw them as the most recent variable in our lives and the possible source for all of this aggression. All of these discussions of "bad guys" and fighting. I blamed my husband for not being stricter with him. For not setting limits and sticking to them. For making me the bad guy who has to explain that we don't hit people. I blamed his school for not telling me that he was struggling. That he was having a problem. That maybe one or two of the other boys in school were bullying him or that he might be bullying them. But most of all, I blamed myself. For not being more attentive. For spending so much time with his sister and not seeing that he was having a rough time. For maybe sending him to school before he was really ready and not keeping him safe at home where no one can call what he likes "stupid". 

And now school is over. School is out for the summer and while I can breathe a little easier knowing that I won't have to fight him on a regular basis about going, I still have a pit in my stomach because I don't really know what the problem is. And therein lies my dilemma - if I don't know the problem, how can I fix it? How can I make it so he likes school again? How can I change his perception of school from being something negative that we HAVE to do to being something positive that he really enjoys?

I have talked to his teachers who seem surprised that he isn't having a good time in class. I have talked with other parents who assure me that it's "not a big deal" and "all kids have issues like this sometimes" and "it will pass". And maybe they are right, maybe it will. Maybe it's just part of development and growing as a person and learning who you are. I've gone so far as to make an appointment with his teacher for next year to talk over the summer so I can get her impressions and give her a heads up as to what we have been working on at home (it helps that she's a friend and someone I already kind of know). I've scheduled more play dates and signed up for other activities so I can see him interacting with other kids first hand. But, after all of this - I still don't know if any of it will make a difference. I guess I'm not really a fan of school when I no longer know the right answer.

Danger, Will Robinson!

I must apologize to anyone who visited my blog these last few days and saw the google warning. Apparently, my adorable free template also could have possibly contained malware. Perhaps that's why it was free? Hence the change in appearance. It's still a work in progress but I think it's much safer to stick with the templates provided on blogger for now.

Wild Thing

I saw something the other day that said "Boy: noun, a noise with dirt on it" Boys are hard. They just are. They seem louder, more rambunctious, more energetic than little girls. I continually feel like my patience is being stretched to it's limits. I worry that I am too quick to react. To snap. To say "NO!" when it doesn't necessarily have to be said.

Lately we have been having days that feel like a constant push-pull tug of war. A battle of wills between mother and son. Initially, I blamed the little sister. I assumed that the interloper was causing all sorts of disruption in the life of my precious child and that could be the only reason he'd suddenly become such a handful. So, I scheduled more one on one time with him. I arranged fun outings, just him and I. I tried to make sure that we would have a few minutes of "just us" time on any given day. And sometimes it seemed to help. Other days, it's like feeding a starving monster. No matter how much attention I try to give, he always wants more. I can never seem to fill him up and he still acts out whether or not he's given attention.

I've run out of ideas. I am wearing a groove in the time out chair. I am tired of constantly repeating myself. My son is probably tired of being yelled at all of the time. And worse, I know he knows when I am exasperated. I know that when I let out a huge sigh of frustration, whether I say anything or not, it's not lost on him. It's not the same as when he was younger and he probably didn't attribute my bad attitude to his misbehavior. These days when I am short and snappish with him because I am asking him not to do something for the 1,000th time, he says "say it nicer" or "don't use that voice" and I know that he's right. It hurts me to think that I might be making him feel bad or hurting his feelings. I want him to learn, but I don't want that lesson to cost him self-esteem. I'm worn out. Sometimes I want to just call a "time-out" on the back and forth and declare a truce for an afternoon. No misbehavior from him and no yelling from me. A peace treaty. I wonder if that's possible.

Ready..set...let go

I am the first person to complain about nursing. I don't like the time it takes. I don't like having to suffer through colds and flu without over-the-counter relief. I hate worrying about using prescriptions that are "unknown" as to whether or not they will affect a baby who is nursing. I don't like sleeping in nursing bras and I really don't like that my sex drive is non-existent.

At Alex's wellness appointment this week, I found out that my "short cake" was just a little too short. In fact, so small, she's barely on the growth chart at all. She has had NO weight gain since her last appointment. None. Not even a little. The poor girl has been starving these last few weeks as I have not been making enough milk to keep her fed. Only recently did she start to complain and I started to get clued in that she might not be getting enough.

Of course, my initial concern after her appointment was getting her fed. So we started to defrost the vast stores of breast milk and supplemented her every feeding. Initially, I tried to nurse her and then give her a bottle. After several very long days of nursing, bottle feeding, and then pumping, I realized I was probably putting in a lot of effort for not a lot of reward. While I was pumping as much as four whole ounces, she was consuming somewhere between twelve and fourteen. It was becoming obvious that the supply and demand were no longer in sync. (I blame the last two months of almost continuous illness but that is neither here nor there at this point.)

I scoured the web and tried many of the suggestions. Breast milk cookies (true story), fenugreek, copious amounts of water, etc. Nothing seemed to increase the supply. I spent most of the weekend agonizing over whether or not to keep nursing. Should I keep trying to nurse in the hopes that the milk will come back or do I accept that we are done with this stage and try to let it go? I finally decided that this was probably it for us. As much as I hate to admit defeat, my body just isn't cooperating with me at all. I didn't think it was fair to Alex to subject her to the ongoing aggravation of trying to get milk when there isn't any or to put myself through the ongoing feelings of disappointment that I was no longer able to meet her needs.

So it is with a heavy heart that I say we are all done nursing. I continue to struggle with this decision, alternating between feeling guilty that I'm just "not trying hard enough" and sad that I won't get to experience that bond anymore. My optimistic side wants to make a list of all of the great things about not nursing anymore and give myself a bright side to look towards, but my melancholic side just wants to wallow a bit longer and grieve for the stage that is over. I can't explain why something that felt like such a drag is now suddenly so hard to let go, but it is.