Tag Archives: frustration

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February 26, 2013

20130226-201211.jpg

Wendy-bird is sorry

“Thank you for keeping me.” That’s what she told Stu as he put her to bed tonight. “I’m sorry for biting I* and kicking E*. I’m sorry for screaming. I’m sorry for being bad. Thank you for saying you love me. And thank you for keeping me.”

Gulp.

When did we give her the idea we’d not be keeping her? That we’d give her away? We do occasionally we tell Teagan that we’re going to leave her at day care/the store/the car if she’s dawdling spectacularly. Usually it gets her hopping, but we always tell her that we wouldn’t leave her when she asks.

Never have we said we’d send her away. Where did that come from?

Needless to day, she was amazingly bad today. She bit someone, she kicked someone, she refused to put her coat on, screaming and rolling on the floor as I tried to corral Ashlin who wanted “walk, I do it, outside, walk!”  It was a spectacular scene, I was sure she was going to hurt her throat from screaming so loud, so much.  I ended up carrying her to the car, while holding her coat, Ashlin walked.  She climbed in, screaming, I hooked her in.  Strapped Ashlin in and left.  Totally embarrassed

She screamed most of the way home, refusing to be quiet.  I kept a calm voice, telling her that she’d be going right up to her room when we got home, until she could be quiet.  It would be up her how long that would be.  You could hear her halfway down the driveway.

Stu went up and reinforced what I had told her.  After about five minutes I went to get her, to bring her down for dinner. She immediately apologized, gave me a hug, told me she was sorry.  I told her that I still loved her, even though she was bad, and hugged her back.  She was a much subdued little girl as she ate dinner, asked to snuggle on the sofa after.

Stu had a chat with her about choices, how she chose to act badly instead of listening to mama.  All I was asking was for her to put her coat on and then she could have a headband.  Such a silly, small thing, that became so big and caused so many tears.

I hope we have the happy, funny Teagan tomorrow.

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April 26, 2012

So, how long does this blatant disregard and hearing loss last?  Till they’re 23?  I’m not sure how long I can handle it without going insane.  Tonight was another super-fun awesome night.  Sigh.

She was pretty good at day care.  They said she was quiet and well behaved at nap time, not disruptive like she has been.  Then a huge accident this afternoon, that she just didn’t care about.  How can pee-soaked pants be fun?

Getting home and dinner was another story.  She seemed to have left her working ears at day care.  It’s like she stopped speaking english, moved to a world of her own.  She ran off, didn’t eat, cried when we prodded her along, threw food at her sister.  The food throwing actually got her sent to bed.  Without books.

We had been going to celebrate her good behavior at day care.  With light box time and a candy cane and dancing.  But instead, we had impertinence, crying and just a little bit of screaming.  I know she’s learning about consequences, but really?  I know when she’s tired, she’s not always in control, but that’s not an excuse.

Sigh.  I wish my baby girl could learn this lesson quickly.  She can be so fun when we’re not yelling at her.

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April 23, 2012

Mine!

Gah.  Why can’t she listen?  Or why is it that she seems to have the retention of a gold fish.  It’s so frustrating.  Dinner tonight was:

Me:  Teagan please don’t crush the cheerios on the floor with your toy
Teagan:  Crushes another cheerio
Me:  Teagan, please stop that.  I’d like you to pick them up and throw them out.  Not crush them.  That makes it harder to clean up.
Teagan:  Stops, looks at me, and crushes another cheerio.

She was totally ignoring me, then blatantly disregarding what I said.  So, I pick her up in one arm, as I already had Ashlin in the other, and go to her booster chair.  The chair she doesn’t really like sitting in any more, because she’s a “big girl”.  Stu takes over with her and starts buckling her in.  She does not like this at all.  Crying that she can do it, that she’ll stop.

Stu ends up distracting her and we get through dinner.  Ashlin is completely tired out, so Stu takes her up as my folks wanted to Skype with Teagan.  While we were waiting for dad to connect, Teagan sticks her finger in her mouth and starts “painting” on the table.  The table I had just cleaned from dinner.  I ask her to stop painting the table.  She hesitates, but then continues.  I ask again.  She stops, chatters about something, dogs eating sausage, her orange piggy tail, I forget.  And then starts smearing the spit around.  AHHHHHHHHH!!

I ask her what she was doing.  She doesn’t answer.  I ask her what I had asked her not to do.  She doesn’t answer.  I tell her that when she doesn’t listen to me it makes me sad.  She asks all the time if she makes us happy, or if we are sad.

I suggest playing a game, a game where she tells me what I just said.  I say that we had pasta for dinner, and then asked her to tell me what I said.  Giggling she said that we had pasta.  I then told her that she had green eyes.  Again asked her to repeat what I said.  She giggled and said green eyes. Ok, so when it’s fun, she plays along.  Then I asked her to not paint the table with spit.  She sheepishly looked at me.  Almost grudginly repeated not to paint the table with spit.

Why can’t she do it when it’s not a game?  In the moment?  Up until recently we didn’t yell at her very often, usually only when it was dangerous. Even now, we try not to.  Sometimes we’ll shout her name, just to get her attention, then continue on in a normal voice. Of course, she’s already melted in tears sobbing that we shouted at her.  Yes.  We did.  She wasn’t listening.  At all.

Sometimes the lure of a sticker works, but not always, and I don’t want to get her to behave just for the reward.  She needs to behave because she’s a part of society.  She will need to live in this world, a world with rules and societal niceties and people she might want to have as friends.

I”m hoping she’ll grow out of this, soon.  It’s very frustrating, makes me feel like a bad mother, as I seem to be yelling a lot, more than I want.  It makes me feel very ineffective and incompetent.  A bad mom.  Can’t make my little girl listen.

PS.  She had an accident today.  Her first in a week.  Sigh.

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April 13, 2012

Sliding Sisters

Teagan did well today.  Fantastic, actually.  No accidents.  Yay!  Unlike yesterday, where she was great all day, but then she felt the need to go behind the sofa and pee her pants after dinner.  After we rewarded her for being such a big girl.

Yesterday was so frustrating, as have these past few weeks.  She’s perfectly capable of using the bathroom when she needs to, she knows to ask, but she’s decided that it’s just easier to not go, and she’ll then wet herself.  We’ve been trying different tactics – encouragement, happiness and reward being the preferred, although voicing our disappointment started happening more and more often.  I once let her stay in her wet pants because she just refused to believe they were wet, and it was a bit easier to ignore it than actually deal with it at the time.  Leaving her in the soiled pants made me feel like I was a horrible parent, I’ve never done it again.

It would be ok, these serial accidents, if it wasn’t so deliberate.  She will go and hide – like she did when she was young before starting training.  You could ask her if she needs to go, she’ll say no, but two minutes later will stand in front of you with wet pants.  We got the plastic lined training pants – crackle pants – but although they did help contain issues, they weren’t any sort of punishment.  She liked them.  We thought about putting her back in diapers – or pull-ups – but that seemed to be more of a backtrack than we needed to do.

I think that although she knows if she has to go to the bathroom, she doesn’t quite understand how urgent her need is.  Eventually, she will get it.  I know she will.

Anyway, today was a good day.  We went to the park.  She went down the slide with her sister.  They loved it.

Ashlin asked for more :)

Ashlin also stood for a bit on her own, unsupported, then bent down and stood back up again.  I fear she may have eaten a wood chip.

Up Down, Touch the Ground!

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March 18, 2012

This one loves the swing.  She cried when I took her out today.  We went back out twice, just to swing in the beautiful day.

Instead of talking about how her sister was a beast today.  And that she made me feel  like the worst parent ever for making her sit and eat potatoes, (yes, potatoes!), let’s talk about the awesome soda bread and Guiness stew I made today.

I had made some soda bread last year, but wasn’t happy with the recipe.  Hello google search.  Success was found on Simply Recipes.  This one was awesome! Easy and quick.  It also made a big loaf, so we can have some for breakfast tomorrow. I have a bunch of buttermilk, so I may make another loaf and freeze it.

As for the guiness stew, well, Google sent me to Simply Recipes again.  Not a bad recipe, easy enough for a beef stew.  Instead of adding the wine – I forgot about my wine cubes in the freezer – I doubled the guiness.  Well, porter.  I also used the Knorr condensed beef stock tubs for the first time.  They’re not bad.  I had used the chicken before in soups, and it was very nice, but never the beef.  Very glad I had some of the beef this time.  Also, if I use this recipe again, I may add an extra potato and  mash it up a bit, or do a quick rue, the broth was a bit thinner than I wanted.  Still, it turned out pretty good.  Three of the four people in the house liked it.

Not too bad of a weekend, if you don’t include last night  for one girl and tonight for the other.  If they keep it up, they may find themselves sold as monkey butlers.

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January 2, 2012

Tortilla Espanola and Pan con Tomate - Bebida

Image by avlxyz via Flickr

All I wanted to do was make dinner.  A dinner that the four of us would sit down and eat.  That’s all.  Not too much to ask for.  And it wasn’t even a complicated dinner at that.  Just a spanish omelet.

Crap.  There she is again…

…

Needless to say the girls, both of them, didn’t let me make dinner.

Ashlin just woudn’t settle for Stu, only me.  Those damn teeth aren’t through yet.  She didn’t sleep well last night either, though she did give me a three hour stretch.  The rest of the night seemed to be 45 minute bits, between rocking, re-swaddling (yes, we’ve been swaddling her.  again!), and general butt patting.

Teagan was, well, herself in all her over-tired and out-of-routine glory.Her listening ears were very scarce.  Though there were times when she was an absolute doll – doing puzzles for almost an hour in the playroom.  She loved the new puzzles we got from Wendy.  (Thanks Aunt Wendy!!).  But there were times she was just a beast.

All day the two of them tag-teamed.  First one, then the other.  When one was napping, the other was awake wanting to eat, or go potty, or nurse, or try to crawl.  You know, stuff you just can’t ignore.  And then vice-versa.  Sigh.  And to top it off, Teagan seems to be fighting off some sort of stomach bug, one that makes her butt explode.  Big poopies!! Double marshmallow earning poopies.  She complained about her belly hurting, which usually means she’s hungry, as well as her butt hurting, which up till today meant she was a bit constipated.  Poor kid.

And Stu was fighting off a migraine.

And I lost my patience.

So, dinner got started and stopped, taken off the stove and restarted, at least four times.

I was able to finish dinner four hours after starting.  Sigh.  It really should have taken only 30 minutes.  Total.

Some days, I don’t know why I even try.  I should just go to bed.  I have a feeling I’ll be on call in an hour.

Sigh.

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November 5, 2011

Anyone want to buy a toddler? Cheap? She cleans up, sometimes, if you sing the clean up song. Pees, and, at least once, pooped, in the potty. Likes “big girl knickers” with flowers. Loves snow and spiders. Appears to have become deaf as well as willfully defiant.

Wait. No. She’s an absolutely lovely child.

I need a drink.

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September 15, 2011

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Ashlin did ok today at day care. I sent in four (!) bottles of 50ml -1.7oz. She grudgingly took one around 11:30, but only drank 30ml. No morning naps today, but she did take two in the afternoon.

Between the naps, day care noticed that she was sucking on her pacifier, almost nursing on it. They quickly swapped her bubble for a bottle at a natural pause in the suck, and she ended up taking the whole thing!

Even though she did not get enough sleep, nor ate enough, she was in a good mood, happy. The afternoon care giver told Stu that she was a pleasure. Always smiling, or quick to smile. Very good natured, even with her bottle issues.

Yay for slowly getting better.

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September 14, 2011

My peanut did good today.  She took two bottles, without too much fuss.  Yay!  Seems like she prefers drinking her bottles in a bouncy, with a pacifier nipple, with a blanket, and not seeing the person feeding her.  Ok.  Whatever.  The instructor at day care can do that.

Look!  She got a smilie for her for first bottle this morning!  And a smilie for her second bottle!  And a note that she did a great job drinking (I only sent in virgin bottles!) today!  With another smilie!

Three smilies! And a check in the “content” box.

I had sent in three 30ml (1oz) bottles, each with a different nipple.  I also sent in a soft spout sippy cup with another 30ml.  So, she did well with two bottles, and prefered the nipple that most resembles her pacifier, so an orthodontic nipple.  Although last night she seemed to like the sippy, the caregivers today said she didn’t like it.  Ok.  She’s allowed.  Her sister was very unsure about sippy cups until about a year.

I feel much better.

Three smilies!!

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September 12, 2011 ~ Day Care Update, Part II

I'm not a problem

Today was Ashlin’s second day in day care.  It was better and worse than her first.  She napped, and played and smiled.  She, however, did not take a bottle.  Not really.

I got a call around noon today, asking what we did to get her to take a bottle.  Um…  breastfeed her?  I’m such a wise-ass in my brain.  We were bad over the weekend, and didn’t work on it.  Why make her cry if we don’t need to?  Well, we probably do need to, as she does need to eat during the day.  But it’s just so much easier, much less frustrating for her and for us, to just breastfeed her.  Sigh.  Mom fail.

Instead, I say that although we try, we never have been very successful.  I do mention that I sent in two types of nipples, one regular medela one and one that looks like her pacifier nipple.  I had told this to the morning instructor, and asked that she let me know which worked best, and that I could send all the bottles in with that nipple.  I guess that message hadn’t been relayed.

By noon she had drunk only 30ml – 1oz – since 6:30.  Not really enough.  She’d be cranky when they tried to feed her, but when the stopped, she’d be all smiles.  She played, she giggled, she napped.

By 4:30, she had taken a total of 60ml – 2oz.

Stu and I left early to get her – so I could nurse her.  The afternoon instructor said that she had done better with the pacifier type nipple, although she only took 30ml.  I told her I’d try a bottle at home tomorrow, and that I’d send in bottles with that nipple from now on.

I hope this stubborn baby changes her mind about bottles.  Soon.