... and then is completely exhausted the rest of the day from being up so damn early.
So, yes, it's great Evie knows how to get herself dressed. Hooray! She's independent and capable and all those wonderful things parents want for their kids. Until those qualities interfere with a good night's (or good nap's) sleep. Then they suck. They absolutely suck. Especially when one parent is traveling and the other is left to deal with said lack of sleep all by themselves. Then that particular parent wishes that particular child was still in a crib and didn't want to do anything for themselves. Even more so when the independent child likes to vocalize their independence loud enough to wake a sleeping baby.
I feel like this is all I'm blogging about lately. I'm just at a total loss for how to deal with it. How does one encourage her toddler to be self sufficient and yet also discourage them from doing so whenever they please?
For the past month or so, Evie has known how to dress herself. First, this was interfering with nap time. Not too big a deal. We solved it by putting Evie to bed early on the days she skipped a nap because she was dressing herself. Now her enthusiasm for self care it has reared it's ugly head during the middle of the freaking night. Last night, Evie got out of bed at 12am, turned on her light, took off her diaper and jammies, dressed herself, and began trying to open her door to get out and have breakfast. The door was locked, so then she started screaming. I had literally just fallen back to sleep after having fed Cora at 11pm, so the screaming jolted me into a semi-conscious state. I stumbled into Evie's room and let her know it was the middle of the night. That her little clock had not turned green, and thus it was absolutely not time to be dressed and out of bed. She didn't fight me too much on this. You could tell she was tired and not quite sure why she was awake and dressed to begin with. Since she had skipped her nap yesterday afternoon, she was probably even more tired as a result. So, I helped her get back into jammies and back in bed and she fell asleep pretty quickly. Until 4:45am when she did the same thing again! I went in at 5am and told her it still wasn't time to be awake, and this time hysterics broke out. She screamed so loud it woke Cora. I couldn't decide whether to ignore or address it, but sheer exhaustion from also being up with Cora two other times made me opt for the former. Eventually she laid back in her bed, but I don't think she fell back asleep. Her light turned green at 6:35am and out she came like nothing had happened.
Every morning we talk about how she needs to stay in bed til the clock turns green. She always agrees she will. Every night before bed we talk about it again, and again she agrees. Clearly that isn't working. We tried laying back in bed with her to get her to fall asleep again and she LOVED that a little too much. So we realized we might be rewarding and even encouraging the behavior. Tonight I think I'll take away her lamp (the only source of light in her room) in an effort to curb the behavior. If that doesn't work. I'm taking away her clothes. Or maybe I should do both at once. Just that the clothes seems like a lot of effort. But then again, so is waking up multiple times a night and helping her get back in jammies and a diaper.
As I write this, miraculously she and Cora are both napping. I should be as well, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen. Evie screamed for 30 solid minutes when I told her it was nap time and locked the door. And Cora hasn't been napping for much more than 30-45 minutes at a time, so I feel like either one of them would wake up the minute my eyes shut. Instead I eat chocolate and drink coffee. Something I'm sure is just great in helping keep caffeine out of Cora's diet.
Let's see. What else. Well, in the last 3 days, Evie has only successfully peed in the potty 2 times. And wet her pants about 50. We seem to go through a major regression every 1-2 months. Today I almost peed my pants out of sheer excitement when she decided to go to the potty after noticing she was starting to have an accident. The last 50 accidents have just happened and she's continued playing with zero desire to change her pants or address what is happening. Only if a big puddle forms on the ground does she stop whatever she's doing and then get excited about the prospect of cleaning up the mess. Yep. She loves to clean it up. I figured part of it might be about the attention she gets when she has an accident, so I'm trying to ignore it and only acknowledge it has happened if she tries to get on a couch or chair. Then I tell her she's not allowed on any furniture until she's gone and changed her wet clothes. But man oh man is it frustrating.
In the wake of all of this, Evie is still for the most part so much fun to be around. Big smiles, big laughs, big stories, and even a desire to play with Cora. She makes quite the effort to get her baby sister involved. The other day at breakfast she sat telling Cora all sorts of things and Cora was majorly into it. Cora has also started giggling, though you really have to work hard to get it out of her. It involves a considerable amount of cooing, big smiles, and gently shaking her or bouncing her. Then she sortof gives this gurgled giggle. Wow is it awesome.
I told Will the other day that part of my struggle in having two is not having mom to call for advice or even to be able to say "I'm desperate. Haven't slept in two weeks. Will you please come help for a weekend." You need your mom for moments like those. I get sad to think that she also missed out on the opportunity to step in when she was needed. As a mom of young children you yearn for the brief moments when no one needs you, so you can take a moment to yourself. But I know this stage is fleeting and I'll soon crave to be needed. So, I guess I feel like mom was robbed of the opportunity to be needed
by Becca and I again later in life. A time that seems so much more rewarding than the kind of need infants and toddlers exhibit. Having an adult conversation with your adult child must be amazing. The ability to say to yourself, "you know, I did a decent job as a parent. Look at the kid I raised." I hope desperately to have those moments with Evie and Cora in the future. I--perhaps neurotically--obsess about reading up on the latest research of healthy living. I want to make sure I keep myself, Will, and the girls as healthy as we can be to at least exert some form of control over our future well being. I know many factors will contribute, but I guess I just want to be sure I'm doing all I can... But I digress.
Amazingly, shortly after telling Will I wished I could talk to mom, my Uncle Chuck sent an audio file recorded from when mom was 32 with Becca at age 3 and me at 10 months. It was a file recorded from her visit to Jean and Paw when they lived in England in 1982. I guess they used to make tapes and send them to their kids stateside since long distance was so expensive. So, this particular tape had the amazing Clark family banter I've treasured for many years. And it had raw moments of
hearing mom as a mother of young kids. Her desperation in the fact that at 10 months I apparently still didn't sleep, and screamed constantly (we later found out this had something to do with my jaw being too small for my teeth, but that didn't help her at the time!), and her exhaustion of having a toddler who was busy and inquisitive and apparently never shut up. Mom went to England for almost a month (or maybe more) so that she could have the help of her own mother. She left Kentucky, and my dad, and her friends in order to have the kind of support only her mom could give her. Even though she and Jean didn't always have the closest relationship. She needed her then. And evidently Jean was the only one I'd stop screaming for. In the recording, you hear Jean say "E.J. is going to electrocute herself on that cord!" and mom reply "well, maybe it'll sever her vocal cords!". Another time, Paw moves the tape recorder closer to my sister so he can be sure "that everyone can hear her voice", to which mom replies "Oh please! We've heard it enough!". She jokes about sending me to Aunt Debbie to raise as her third daughter. Those raw parenting moments, laced with mom's humor, help me to know no one is perfect. In remembering mom, it seems she never failed as a parent. A high standard to live up to. It's nice to know she too needed a little help now and then too.
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| Dressing herself to go play outside |
I feel like this is all I'm blogging about lately. I'm just at a total loss for how to deal with it. How does one encourage her toddler to be self sufficient and yet also discourage them from doing so whenever they please?
For the past month or so, Evie has known how to dress herself. First, this was interfering with nap time. Not too big a deal. We solved it by putting Evie to bed early on the days she skipped a nap because she was dressing herself. Now her enthusiasm for self care it has reared it's ugly head during the middle of the freaking night. Last night, Evie got out of bed at 12am, turned on her light, took off her diaper and jammies, dressed herself, and began trying to open her door to get out and have breakfast. The door was locked, so then she started screaming. I had literally just fallen back to sleep after having fed Cora at 11pm, so the screaming jolted me into a semi-conscious state. I stumbled into Evie's room and let her know it was the middle of the night. That her little clock had not turned green, and thus it was absolutely not time to be dressed and out of bed. She didn't fight me too much on this. You could tell she was tired and not quite sure why she was awake and dressed to begin with. Since she had skipped her nap yesterday afternoon, she was probably even more tired as a result. So, I helped her get back into jammies and back in bed and she fell asleep pretty quickly. Until 4:45am when she did the same thing again! I went in at 5am and told her it still wasn't time to be awake, and this time hysterics broke out. She screamed so loud it woke Cora. I couldn't decide whether to ignore or address it, but sheer exhaustion from also being up with Cora two other times made me opt for the former. Eventually she laid back in her bed, but I don't think she fell back asleep. Her light turned green at 6:35am and out she came like nothing had happened.
Every morning we talk about how she needs to stay in bed til the clock turns green. She always agrees she will. Every night before bed we talk about it again, and again she agrees. Clearly that isn't working. We tried laying back in bed with her to get her to fall asleep again and she LOVED that a little too much. So we realized we might be rewarding and even encouraging the behavior. Tonight I think I'll take away her lamp (the only source of light in her room) in an effort to curb the behavior. If that doesn't work. I'm taking away her clothes. Or maybe I should do both at once. Just that the clothes seems like a lot of effort. But then again, so is waking up multiple times a night and helping her get back in jammies and a diaper.As I write this, miraculously she and Cora are both napping. I should be as well, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen. Evie screamed for 30 solid minutes when I told her it was nap time and locked the door. And Cora hasn't been napping for much more than 30-45 minutes at a time, so I feel like either one of them would wake up the minute my eyes shut. Instead I eat chocolate and drink coffee. Something I'm sure is just great in helping keep caffeine out of Cora's diet.
Let's see. What else. Well, in the last 3 days, Evie has only successfully peed in the potty 2 times. And wet her pants about 50. We seem to go through a major regression every 1-2 months. Today I almost peed my pants out of sheer excitement when she decided to go to the potty after noticing she was starting to have an accident. The last 50 accidents have just happened and she's continued playing with zero desire to change her pants or address what is happening. Only if a big puddle forms on the ground does she stop whatever she's doing and then get excited about the prospect of cleaning up the mess. Yep. She loves to clean it up. I figured part of it might be about the attention she gets when she has an accident, so I'm trying to ignore it and only acknowledge it has happened if she tries to get on a couch or chair. Then I tell her she's not allowed on any furniture until she's gone and changed her wet clothes. But man oh man is it frustrating.In the wake of all of this, Evie is still for the most part so much fun to be around. Big smiles, big laughs, big stories, and even a desire to play with Cora. She makes quite the effort to get her baby sister involved. The other day at breakfast she sat telling Cora all sorts of things and Cora was majorly into it. Cora has also started giggling, though you really have to work hard to get it out of her. It involves a considerable amount of cooing, big smiles, and gently shaking her or bouncing her. Then she sortof gives this gurgled giggle. Wow is it awesome.I told Will the other day that part of my struggle in having two is not having mom to call for advice or even to be able to say "I'm desperate. Haven't slept in two weeks. Will you please come help for a weekend." You need your mom for moments like those. I get sad to think that she also missed out on the opportunity to step in when she was needed. As a mom of young children you yearn for the brief moments when no one needs you, so you can take a moment to yourself. But I know this stage is fleeting and I'll soon crave to be needed. So, I guess I feel like mom was robbed of the opportunity to be needed
Amazingly, shortly after telling Will I wished I could talk to mom, my Uncle Chuck sent an audio file recorded from when mom was 32 with Becca at age 3 and me at 10 months. It was a file recorded from her visit to Jean and Paw when they lived in England in 1982. I guess they used to make tapes and send them to their kids stateside since long distance was so expensive. So, this particular tape had the amazing Clark family banter I've treasured for many years. And it had raw moments of
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| Survival mode: take Evie out to dinner when Will is out of town. Let someone else cook & clean... and be around other adults. Win! |
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