Outside My Window March 8, 2008

My Great Aunt Gay passed away several weeks ago. At her memorial the little “pamphlet” of reflections and thoughts has this poem on it. I’d never read it before but I really like the message:

Outside my window a new day I see,

And only I can determine what kind of day it’s going to be.

It can be busy and sunny, laughing and gay.

My own state of mind is the determining key.

For I am only the person I let myself be.

I can be thoughtful and do all I can to help,

Or be selfish and think just of myself,

I can enjoy what I do, make it seem fun,

Or gripe and complain and make it tough on someone.

I can be patient with those who may not understand,

Or belittle and hurt them as much as I can.

But I’ve got faith in myself and believe what I say,

And I personally intend to make the best of each day.

Perspective March 8, 2008

The last couple of weeks have been hard ones. Both Greg and Fiona were really sick with the flu/cold. I lucked out and started taking Zicon the minute they got sick…I swear by it now….I definitely was fighting the bug but I never got it anything like they had it. Fiona still has a runny runny nose and lose cough.

I don’t know if she is teething (quite possibly) or she still feels poopy…or if it’s just a phase but Fiona has been visiting tantrum city every day recently. I’ve been scrambling to talk to other moms and read all I can read about what to do. She bangs her head and hits herself and screams. It could…COULD….partially be if she is teething….sometimes kids do that for whatever reason when they are teething.

I’ve gotten many good tips from friends and books so we’re trying to fill our arsenal with skills to cope. We are hoping that maybe when she can use a few more words some of the frustration will wane. It’s hard not to react to the energy and get sucked into the tantrum with her….ESPECIALLY at 3 a.m.! so i’m really working on remembering that it’s my (our) job to teach her what to do with these feelings…not just observe them. That seems obvious…if a parent had told me that before I had a kid I would think….”uh yep! that’s your job….uh….you are the parent….that’s what that means”….but sometimes it’s not so easy to keep that going real time….it’s something that i really need to keep in the front of my brain for awhile until it becomes more of a habit.

When things seem really hard I have found a blog network of moms with quads. I have no idea who they are but it puts my life in perspective quite quickly =)

peace at dawn March 8, 2008

It’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I have already fed the cats and the dog, taken a shower, got dressed, made coffee, working on my 2nd cup,surfed the web, text messaged with GG and cleaned the bathroom (tub and floor included). WHAT? Just a few years ago I would have most likely just gotten home a few hours before and would be sound asleep right now. Times truly have changed.

I am a night person at heart. I have been since the day I was born. In my perfect world I would start work around 7 or 8 p .m. and work until 2 or 3 in the morning, sleep for awhile, get up for awhile, take a long “nap” and start over again. That is my natural clock. Never did I think anything could change it. Even when I had a job that required me to be in at 6 or 7 a.m. every day did my clock change. It was a constant battle for me. Somehow this is different.

Greg is gone again, left yesterday to go back to China for two weeks…the trips with the most weekends in them seem to last the longest and this one has two full weekends…it’s going to feel long. I learned early on that my day can be broke or made by whether i get a shower or not so when greg is gone…even on the weekends…i get up at 6 so that i can take a shower and drink a cup of coffee in peace.

So here I am…HAPPILY….blogging away at 8a.m….already well on my way in my day….amazing.

The Terrible Twelves March 2, 2008

It’s usually the terrible twos…but I’m afraid we might be in the terrible twelve-months slice. I know I’m bragging here…but Fiona has always been ahead of schedule….got her nap schedule down sooner, switched to one nap months before (no one else her age is doing that yet and she’s been at one nap for months), rolled, crawled, walked – you know…all those milestones she was ahead of “average” – this is pretty normal it seems for, as Dr. Sears puts it – High Needs Children…or Spirited Children….or “beautiful forces of nature” (my favorite)….it means nothing more then that we need to read ahead a few chapters in all of those childhood development books.

It seems that that may be true when it comes to tantrums too. Now Fi hasn’t been feeling well lately so that certainly adds to the frequency and longevity of said tantrums…but it’s 1 p.m. and we’ve already survived three for the day….one DOOZY last night before bed (i’m sure she was TOO tired) and are looking forward to more =)

They generally are over not getting some item that she feels she desperately needs and we feel she doesn’t, that she wants to go outside – regardless of time of day or weather or how dressed we are, or getting dressed/diaper changed. They involve a lot of screaming and crying and yelling and stomping – and my favorite – banging her head against the ground or nearest wall repeatedly. It makes me wonder why this seems to be an innate reaction for humans….I know she isn’t the only child to bang her head against something….how exactly did that help our ancestors survive? Did the T-Rex think they were too crazy to eat? Anyway…I digress….

So we’ve been reading books and web sites about tantrums (by we I mean me) and trying our best to turn these into “learning experiences”. HA!

And The Weener Is….. March 2, 2008

Apparently we are weened. It’s tough to tell. Little miss has had a really bad cold this last week so she hasn’t been super interested in food or a lot of bottle – i think it’s more frustrating for her to try and drink with a stuffed nose then to not drink at all…her sleep has also been all across the board from absolutely awful to amazingly long and solid…so maybe this is all just circumstance…but the last two nights when I have gone to nurse Fi she screams at me and pushes me away. If i go and make a bottle she’ll take it. So it looks likes she’s done nursing…partially weened by me and partially weened by herself…I like that…a team ween.

this poses a couple of questions for me….(the first ? is one for us just to figure out) now i’m trying to figure out if if she’s ready for no more milk at night all together…I mean I know all the “experts” say…and it’s true…that she doesn’t “need” milk at night…but sometimes it comes down to 2 hours of screaming or 5 minutes of milk to sleep…which would you choose? =)

and the 2nd question: i’ve never given a bottle in the middle of the night before (except the last couple of nights) this is a whole (hopefully SHORT lived!) new routine….anyone out there have tips on how to do it? I mean, when fi cries in the middle of the night what i’ve been doing is waiting for a bit to see if she can put herself back to sleep or if it’s going to escalate out of control…i stay in my warm cozy bed during this waiting period and usually fall back to sleep unless i’m really needed….and if i am i just walk in there and cuddle/rock/bounce/nurse….but now…i need to get up, go to the kitchen, get the milk out, warm it in the microwave, poor it in the bottle…then go to her…which is minutes (i know…only minutes…but minutes are surprisingly long at 3 a.m. in the cold dark house with a screaming baby…any ideas on how to expedite this? I’ve already suggested to greg a mini-fridge and a microwave next to the bed…which he of course laughed out….however if it was him getting up all night long i’m sure we’d already have it all set up =)