This first one was sent to me the day before we left for our recent trip to visit our Chicago friends. To preface, Hallie has been going through a phase of behavior which would be much more frustrating if she wasn't so darn cute. This phase can be summarized with three problems:
1) recently she will only willingly eat cheerios and rice puffs (and things we don't want her to eat like dirt clods and cat food). She doesn't want anything to do with baby/mush foods and has built up quite a repertoire of defenses to keep us from feeding them to her. In order to give her some semblance of a balanced diet we have to constantly come up with new tricks to distract her and sneak/force spoonfuls into her mouth. There is a detailed blog post on this conflict coming soon.
2) she is expressing her independence in controlling her body, which means fighting being strapped into anything: her stroller, carseat, and most notably, grocery cart seats. Also getting her to lie still for a diaper change is like wrestling a screaming baby gorilla.
3) she is such a ridiculously light sleeper we can hardly do anything at any volume level above a whisper during nap time, or nap time will be hopelessly cut short and she will be a screaming basketcase for the remainder of the day.
The other part of this story is the boy. As part of typical 3-year-oldness, he does not like to drink all his milk/juice as he is required to do before being excused from each meal (we only give him half a small glass and it's the only thing we make sure he consumes in entirety). This often results in mealtimes that last way longer than they should and involve several bawling meltdowns since we won't back down on him finishing the last two sips of juice before he can get down to play. And the longer a meal goes on, the greater the chance that a glass of milk/juice will be accidentally spilled; this happens fairly frequently.
Also, like many kids his age, Will has problems obeying the "we only color on paper" rule.
From Erin on 3/26/10:
Apparently Hallie is also now boycotting, in addition to eating, sleeping. She is upstairs in her bed just sighing loudly over and over. Occasionally I'll hear a whimper when she jumps too high on her bed, falls over, and hits her head, and I've also heard her say "ut-oh" a couple of times when she, I assume, throws things out of her crib.
We went to the store already today - Hallie cried for more than 60% of the time we were there. Since there was nothing I could do to ease her pain, I ignored her because I'm such an awesome parent. Also while we were there she ate a coupon - not kidding - and dropped her pacifier on the floor ("ut-oh" through the tears) 11 hundred times. Will was pretty good at the store - I made a Blue's Clues game for him to play while we were there which he really liked - and was even helpful at checkout. He turned on me at home though, taking 50 minutes to eat his lunch and therefore getting no books before nap, spilling milk on the newly-mopped floor, and dragging Hallie from the upstairs bathroom to his bedroom by the wrist. Want to know why the kitchen floor was newly-mopped? Will's leftover juice from breakfast fell out of the refrigerator and spilled ALL OVER the floor. And ALL OVER me. Orange juice is the single worst thing to clean up - I had already mopped twice when the milk was spilled. Oh, and Hellie (that was a typo, but I'm leaving it as it's appropriate here) gouged me in the eye with her comb right before her nap. Oh, and Will colored his entire hand blue and used it as a stamp, leaving Blue's Clues hand prints all around the house on various things - the Shut Box game, the kitchen table, Roar, my bath towel, and his own face. I'm certain I will find more clues throughout the next few days.
So now I'm trying to get my work done, four loads of laundry done, packing for tomorrow done, and making food for tomorrow done, all while not going completely insane.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Email #2, sent earlier this week. To preface this, Erin and I have been dealing with Will's reluctance to STAY IN BED after we tuck him in. He is allowed to get up one time to go potty in the night. On average, he probably gets up and ventures out 3 times a night - usually going potty multiple times, asking for a drink of water, asking for a hug (ok, that's sweet), or just hiding outside our door and watching what we have on TV until he gets caught.
Apparently Hallie is also now boycotting, in addition to eating, sleeping. She is upstairs in her bed just sighing loudly over and over. Occasionally I'll hear a whimper when she jumps too high on her bed, falls over, and hits her head, and I've also heard her say "ut-oh" a couple of times when she, I assume, throws things out of her crib.
We went to the store already today - Hallie cried for more than 60% of the time we were there. Since there was nothing I could do to ease her pain, I ignored her because I'm such an awesome parent. Also while we were there she ate a coupon - not kidding - and dropped her pacifier on the floor ("ut-oh" through the tears) 11 hundred times. Will was pretty good at the store - I made a Blue's Clues game for him to play while we were there which he really liked - and was even helpful at checkout. He turned on me at home though, taking 50 minutes to eat his lunch and therefore getting no books before nap, spilling milk on the newly-mopped floor, and dragging Hallie from the upstairs bathroom to his bedroom by the wrist. Want to know why the kitchen floor was newly-mopped? Will's leftover juice from breakfast fell out of the refrigerator and spilled ALL OVER the floor. And ALL OVER me. Orange juice is the single worst thing to clean up - I had already mopped twice when the milk was spilled. Oh, and Hellie (that was a typo, but I'm leaving it as it's appropriate here) gouged me in the eye with her comb right before her nap. Oh, and Will colored his entire hand blue and used it as a stamp, leaving Blue's Clues hand prints all around the house on various things - the Shut Box game, the kitchen table, Roar, my bath towel, and his own face. I'm certain I will find more clues throughout the next few days.
So now I'm trying to get my work done, four loads of laundry done, packing for tomorrow done, and making food for tomorrow done, all while not going completely insane.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Email #2, sent earlier this week. To preface this, Erin and I have been dealing with Will's reluctance to STAY IN BED after we tuck him in. He is allowed to get up one time to go potty in the night. On average, he probably gets up and ventures out 3 times a night - usually going potty multiple times, asking for a drink of water, asking for a hug (ok, that's sweet), or just hiding outside our door and watching what we have on TV until he gets caught.
from Erin 4/6/10:
Will emerges from his bedroom.
Erin: "Will, you've already been up twice. You need to go back to bed."
Will: "Let me just tell you something, Mom. When you have to go potty, you have to go potty."
Erin: "You have a point."
Will emerges from his bedroom.
Erin: "Will, you've already been up twice. You need to go back to bed."
Will: "Let me just tell you something, Mom. When you have to go potty, you have to go potty."
Erin: "You have a point."
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