The Preschooler

I'm playing catch-up a bit tonight.  We are at the Farm, and due to traveling and then visiting with family, I have not had a chance to post about Miss's preschool graduation party until tonight.  Of course, she didn't graduate from preschool, but a three or four of the other kids in her school did, so there was a little party last Thursday to celebrate the end of the school year and say farewell to those kids heading off to Kindergarten next year.  I love that her school is a mixed age school and that it is so small, so that she sees her older classmates taking this step to Kindergarten and yet doesn't lose too many of her friends from the past year.

The party was lots of fun.  Miss spent almost the entire time intently focused on making a necklace for herself.

Once she finished it (you can see how long it is in the photos below!!) she went over to the face painting area.  She was a little unsure about the face painting at first.  She is my cautious girl, and she wanted to think this one over a bit.

She eventually sat down and allowed one of her teachers to paint a flower on her cheek.  A blue flower of course.  I love that her teacher knew that blue is her favorite color and commented on it to her (Miss wears a blue shirt to school almost every day).

Though she didn't graduate from preschool to Kindergarten, she did get a certificate for completing her first year of school.  I am so proud of how far she has come in this past year.  She has learned so much and really gained in confidence.  My girl who used to cry every time I dropped her off at school now doesn't want to leave when I come to pick her up.  Every day she says, "Mama, I had so much fun at school today."

When we got home Miss proudly showed off her necklace and face paint (which took three days to wash off, by the way).

Then we had our own little party with some treasures from the Target dollar aisle (have I mentioned how much I love the Target dollar aisle?) and some new sunglasses purchased for our trip to the Farm.

I have so many great photos already from the past weekend of the girls with their cousins at the Farm.  I will post them very soon.  'Night.

The Tantrum

Last week my husband worked nights and Miss didn't nap.  That wasn't the best combination, and we had a few rough points during the week.  It reminded me of another time my husband was working nights and Miss had her first super crazy meltdown tantrum.  Aaaah, memories...

*******

Okay, so I am floundering a bit with this "Terrible Twos" thing. I hate even saying that. "Terrible Twos." Having a nearly-two-year-old is not terrible. Most of the time, it's pretty great. But I have found myself in this place recently where sometimes, just sometimes, it is totally. crazy. psycho. During Miss's toddlerhood thus far we've had our share of "moments." Brief little fits. Minor tantrums. They were usually short and they'd blow over quickly. Miss could be distracted pretty easily, and if not she'd pull herself together without too much drama. The one area where we sometimes would have a big meltdown would be after nap when Miss would sometimes wake up in a terrible mood and just have a screaming fit for what seemed like an age.

And then we had today. This morning. My girl woke up like a little ray of sunshine, as always. We had fun playing and coloring and watching a little bit of Sesame Street. We pretended to be dinosaurs. She pretended to make lemonade. Then she said she was hungry so I took her in the kitchen to get a snack. I asked her what she wanted. "Bunny crackers." "Yogurt." Okay, no problem. I got out the yogurt, got a spoon, opened the yogurt and started to put it in front of her. Strawberry yogurt. Yum. Then she asked for a sandwich. I simply said something like, "Well honey, let's have a little snack now and then I'll get you a sandwich at lunchtime." Hello. Commence screaming. Seriously. She started howling like a banshee and did not stop. I tried all my usual tricks. I tried to get her to laugh. I said something like, "I'm sorry you're upset. Please use your words to tell me what you want and I'll be happy to help you."  Ha!! After a while of more shrieking I thought I heard her say, "bunnies," so to try to positively reinforce her "using her words" I got the bunny crackers out and put some on her placemat. She screamed harder. I ate her yogurt and tried to wait her out. She said "down" so I got her down from her chair, at which point she fell to the floor and continued howling. My husband, who was upstairs trying to sleep came downstairs and asked her why she was crying. She stopped for a second, said "Daddy" and then went right back to yelling. He looked at me, I shrugged, he went back upstairs with a comment to the effect of, "Well, I just wanted to make sure that you weren't knocked out down here or something . . ." The rest of what he said was lost in the noise of our daughter. I'm pretty sure that was his no-so-subtle way of saying, "Okay, since you're conscious, can you please do something about our child's insane wailing?" It didn't help that he happened to come downstairs during the part where I was eating her yogurt and trying to wait her out, so it probably looked like I was just chillin', having a snack, not realizing that our child had turned into a little puddle of insanity on the floor.

Anyway, it went on. I could describe the whole painful morning in detail, I'm sure, as it feels as though the scene is scorched into my brain, never to be forgotten. The First Big One. But I'll spare you the details. Okay, I probably already gave way too many details. So, we can leave it at, It Was Bad, and move on. I probably could have ended it rather quickly by turning on the TV or letting her watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer or something like that. But I could not bring myself to do that. It just felt like that would have been reinforcing a behavior I'm not anxious to have repeated. Okay, don't laugh, I know it will be repeated in some form quite a few times and probably agonizingly in public on at least a few occasions too. I'm just saying, I don't want to increase the frequency of the Tantrum From Hell by reinforcing it. I'm a psychologist. I'm all into my behavioral principles. I know them forwards and backwards. I guess I automatically get Skinnerian in my head when dealing with this discipline stuff. But I gotta say, this morning, I felt L.O.S.T. I wasn't mad. I wasn't really even upset. I just had no idea how to make it stop. I knew I didn't want to reinforce the behavior, but I also wasn't trying to punish her. She's almost two. She doesn't have good control of her emotions and still has trouble expressing herself. She's learning to deal with this stuff just like I am. But wow. I felt like I had been dropped into the deep end and had forgotten how to swim. I suppose, to stick with this simile, I managed to tread. And you know what eventually worked? I sat down on the floor where we had been coloring earlier, picked up a crayon, and started coloring. Within a minute she had stopped crying and was sitting next to me coloring away. Who knew?

So, I don't really know where I'm going with this post, except to say that I am finding more and more Mommy-moments when I really feel like I'm not sure what the heck I'm doing. I always end up just going with what feels right to me, and things turn out okay. But then I look back and analyze everything and wonder if I did it right and am I going to screw my kid up forever or is she going to turn into a raging brat because I didn't discipline her enough or did I do it too much and now she's going to be insecure or rebellious??? Maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration. I'm not quite that neurotic. But I do tend to look back on what I did and see if there's something I should do better or differently the next time. I guess I'm just making a mental note to myself that, even with all my principles of reinforcement swirling in my head, I still need to learn how to make it work with this girl. And maybe it will be different every time. And then I'll have to learn it all over again with Lass. And so on. So, I've come to realize that there is no greater in vivo learning experience than motherhood. This is my classroom.

After Miss's fit resolved, I got Lass (poor thing was just hanging out playing during the whole drawn out drama) down for a nap and asked Miss if she wanted to do some finger painting. This was a first for her so she had no idea what I was talking about, but she sure thought it sounded cool. So we got messy as our way to "make-up" (not quite the right word, but I liked the alliteration of the title) after the meltdown.

She liked squishing the paint between her fingers.

Masterpiece #1.

A bit of a lighter touch with this one.

After a while she got freaked out that her hands were so messy.

So she cleaned them off and got right back to it.

She decided to try tasting the paint and didn't much care for it.

For the record, Crayola's "washable" finger paints are indeed washable.

Gallery.

She seemed to like this set up better.

Aaand, we're done.

What better way to finish a messy craft time than with a bubble bath?

Hanging out with Lass at lunch time. We had no more eating-related meltdowns. She had forgotten entirely about the sandwich. For lunch she wanted strawberry yogurt and Cheerios. Unfortunately I had eaten the last strawberry yogurt while she was howling face down on the floor, but she was content with apple. And I wasn't gonna fuss about the lunch menu today. Apple yogurt and dry Cheerios? Sure.

And here she is proudly showing off her artwork to her Daddy when he woke up.

Before I click "Publish Post," I feel like I should say that I know this is my second post in less than a week that might seem like it has a bit of a "complain-y" feel to it regarding mothering a toddler. I am not complaining. I realize all the time how lucky I am to have these two little people to bring up in the best way I can. Sometimes I screw up, and sometimes I nail it, and always I hope that I will learn and get better. And this blog is my way of chronicling this journey, and sharing it, and helping myself to figure it out by getting the words out of my head. So that's it. Going to Arizona tomorrow. Wish us luck on the plane! Good night.

*******

Things are back to normal around here this week and much improved, though Miss still isn't napping, which means she's a bit of a mess by bedtime.  But nothing like she was that day^^^  

Song Bird

Last night I had some special girl time with my eldest before bed.  We painted her fingernails.  She chose blue, of course.  While waiting for them to dry we made some funny faces and sang some songs.

My girl loves to sing.  Both of my older girls do, in fact, though Lass is still working on the words a bit...  Miss goes all out in singing her favorites.  She lifts her chin up and belts them out at full volume.  In the car, in the playroom, at the store, on the swingset, wherever.  We were even informed by her teachers that she sings like this at school.  I absolutely love that she does this.  I think it might be a little bit hereditary, because I think I used to sing like that when I was a kid too (okay, I still do).  I remember singing with my mom and my Grandma a lot.  My Mom and I used to rock out to "Barbara Susanne Stripe" (a.k.a. Barbara Streisand), Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow on 8-track. Or we'd sing all sorts of kid's songs: You are My Sunshine, Eensy Weensy Spider, Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, and so on.  My Grandma is a very talented musician, and she used to play the piano and teach me lots of old-timey songs.  I think singing is an expression of happiness.  It's good for the soul.

We sing a lot in our family.  My husband plays the guitar and we sing along with him in the evenings.  The girls and I sing lots of little songs during the day.  We sing while we play, while we are in the car, while we do just about anything.  I've had strangers chuckle at me for singing with my girls in the grocery store.  I think it's usually a nice, friendly chuckle.  I hope.  I'm no vocal sensation, but I can carry a tune.  And who doesn't love a moving rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in their grocery's produce section?

Anyway.  Back to last night.  After Miss and I finished with her nails, while they were drying, she was singing her latest favorite song, "Whistle While You Work."  I especially love when she sings the songs from Snow White, because she doesn't just sings the words, she does the vocal trilling "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha..." like Snow White does.  I don't know if that's the right term to describe it, but it's so cute.  And since I can't really describe it well, I captured it on video.  Though my girl sings loudly and unselfconsciously almost all day long, like most kids her age she was a little less willing to do it on command.  When I first asked her to sing for the camera, she said that she had "run out" of singing.  But then when I told her that I wanted to take a video of her and she could watch it afterwards, well, I could just see the wheels turning as she thought about that.  The video below is not characteristic of how she usually sings.  She's more timid and much quieter than usual.  But I couldn't help but smile when I watched and listened to her sing her song.  I hope you will too.  

The Little Photographer

Quickie post tonight:

As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy's "Whitetail" magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn't edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid's camera doesn't take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I'm so proud of my little photographer.

Three

Yesterday was Miss's third birthday.  She's three.  I can hardly believe it.  It seems like it couldn't have been that long ago that she came into my world and made me a Mama.

I wonder if I will have this incredulous feeling every year, as time flies by and my girls get older.  Holy cow, Miss is six! How is that possible?  and OMG, I just can't believe my little Lass is 10, and so on.  I suspect I will.  I suspect I will continue to cherish every new stage my girls reach, while simultaneously feeling just a little bit shocked, maybe a teeny bit sad, that they are growing up.  Each time one of my girls has a birthday, I think back on the day that she was born and I savor my memories of those first moments of seeing her, holding her, and marveling at every tiny detail of her.  I look at how much she has grown and I am amazed.  These girls amaze me in their new developments all the time.  I suspect they always will.



We were out of town visiting family this weekend, and unfortunately both of my girls had bad colds.  Miss woke from her nap shortly before her birthday party started, and it took her a little while to warm up.  She had been feeling yucky for a few days, and was resistant to the idea of even having a birthday party.  She did get into playing with her sister and cousins eventually.

We had a Care Bears themed party and I had been so excited for her to enjoy it, but she just wasn't feeling it.  When it came time to sing "Happy Birthday" and blow out her candles, she was not having any part of it. 

Poor thing refused to blow out her candles, so we had to ask one of her cousins to help.

I hated that she was feeling so badly.  She even said, at first, that she didn't want any cake or ice cream. After I got some and offered to share a bite with her, she changed her mind though.  She ate most of "my" piece of cake and almost all of my ice cream.

Notice her poor upper lip and under her nose.  She has been refusing to let me put anything on it but chapstick, and she wipes or licks that off almost right after I put it on. 

My birthday girl perked up a bit more when she started opening her gifts.

A few months ago, after she first saw the movie "Snow White" and we read books like "The Little Mermaid" and "Sleeping Beauty" a few times, she said that she wanted "A Snow White, a Sleeping Beauty, Ariel without her tail, a prince, a queen and a castle" for her birthday.  So that's what she got.

But the biggest gift hit?  The Yo Gabba Gabba beanie babies I had ordered for her for Christmas.  They were back ordered and didn't arrive until late January.  She is currently sleeping with all five of them.

Lass had a pretty good time at the party as well.

Overall the party was a success, I think, though I wish my girls had been feeling better.  I'm hoping they will be back to their energetic, happy selves very soon.

Speaking of very soon, in only about five weeks or so, we will expand again to a little family of five.


I'm so eager to meet little Sis.  Tonight I'm thinking about the Birth Day of my eldest, while happily anticipating the rapidly approaching Birth Day of our newest little one.