I Might Just Move Out

I'm having kind of a bad day.

It's one of those days where I feel like I'm failing at life, which I realize is ridiculous because I can name off plenty of things I'm doing right, but I'm having a moment of self-pity I suppose.

I feel like I'm not living up to anyone's expectations, particularly my own expectations.  I'm feeling helpless, clueless, and as a result - a little hopeless.  I'm sure that in reality this isn't true, but the feelings are there from time to time and it makes me want to bury my head in the sand until I'm magically feeling better about it all.

Thing is, if I'm waiting for a magical cure-all, I'm going to be waiting a LONG time, so I should really just take care of things myself.

High up on my list is parenting Connor.  He is really well behaved for the most part when I am not around, which honestly makes me want to just move out from time to time, but when we're together he's all whining and naughtiness.  Mikayla had temper tantrums, Izzy hasn't always been a gem either, and perhaps it's because I'm just stretched thinner as a mother of 3 than I was before, but I'm pretty sure Connor secretly wants me to move out.  Ugh.

A week and a half ago during the Wizard of Oz cast/crew potluck, Spencer and Connor were eating their food while I was getting myself ready to go to a call-back for another play.  As soon as I sat back down with them Connor starting whining/complaining about his food and wanting to get down and being just plain ugly about it.  Spencer says, "he was fine until you got here."  Double UGH!

We've made some progress though.  I pulled out my good ol' behavior chart and added a reward at the end of the day for everyone age 3 and up who get's to the star at the end of the chart.  They get a hershey kiss if they get all the way there (every hour or so of good behavior gets them a step toward their star, bad behavior moves them back).  I give my daycare boy's treat to his mom for her to give him when she deems it appropriate, Connor and Izzy get theirs as soon as daycare is over (Mikayla too actually, but she doesn't need the chart).  Out of sheer desperation for not wanting to put Connor on craigslist, I also bought a cheap 5-pack of matchbox cars.  Until the cars are gone, if he is really good all day he can have one at the end of the day.  I don't think it's appropriate to keep that kind of reward going, but for the 5 times he gets one it will hopefully drive the point home that good behavior is rewarded while bad behavior gets nothing but punishment.

He's also spending more time in time out, which he hates, and he didn't like how mad I got at him yesterday when he was being particularly horrendous.  I know he's a three-year-old and it's a totally different kind of difficult than age 2 is, but sheesh!

Also, until I can get him to behave himself around me, the potty training thing just won't go well, because he doesn't seem at all apt to please me.

I'm sure I'll pull out of this funk eventually, I'm just hoping that it's sooner rather than later.

Thanks for listening!!

Lights OUT

Connor's new thing has been turning on his light, since he can now reach it without standing on anything, when he's supposed to be sleeping.

On and off it goes during nap time, which doesn't bother me much, and at night, which bothers me more.  A few nights ago it was a real problem.  He turned it on, and instead of playing the on/off game with him all night I just let him keep it on and when he fell asleep I turned it off for him and went to bed.  When I woke up to use the bathroom 5 hours later his light was back on and he was asleep again.  I turned it off and went back to bed.  When I woke up in the morning it was on again.  Clearly he wasn't getting much sleep if he was turning his light on constantly - which made him horrendously crabby the next day!

He has a night light, and I don't think at this point that it's a fear of the dark thing... I think it's more of a Connor's-being-a-booger thing.  After a Monday from hell with him, Spence and I agreed that since he can't keep his light off when he's supposed to, he will lose his lights for a while.  So I loosened his light bulbs so no matter how many times he flicks the light switch, he will get no reward.

Monday night he got a bit more sleep and was considerably less possessed-like on Tuesday.  Tuesday night he fell right asleep and got a good 12 hours of sleep.  And the verdict?  He was still just as cranky as ever this morning.  Maybe he needs more than just one good night sleep to cure him of his nastiness, we can only hope.

He wasn't happy about his "broken" lights, but I told him since he was being naughty and turning his lights on at bedtime, we took away his lights.  He doesn't like it but he doesn't seem scared of the darkness, and I know that our solution is far more to his liking then returning him to the hospital.  Plus they won't take him back... I asked.

Kindness Chart - It's a Beautiful Thing

My preferred method of discipline is to begin with clear and realistic rule, and positive reenforcement.  When the kids make a mistake I remind them of the rules and consequences, and if they continue the behavior they receive a time-out.  The reminder/warning part is skipped if a child does something to intentionally hurt someone, I don't want them to learn that they can get away with hurting someone if they only do it once!

I have used several different methods of positive reenforcement and behavior charts over the years.  Over time the kids get bored with the system, and so do I, so I have to change things up!  I have a pretty great group of kids right now, they don't have problems with aggresion, but sometimes they have days where they could be a bit kinder.  So this is what we did last Friday...

First I sat down with all of the kids, a blank piece of paper, and a marker, and I asked them, "What is kindness?  What does it mean to be kind?"  And this is the list they gave me all on their own:

In case it's hard to read, it says:

~ Helping others who are having trouble

~ Don't tattle

~ Reading to a friend

~ Including others

~ Thinking of others' feelings

~ Say nice things

~ Be a nice friend

~ Do what the grown-up tells you to do (we talked about which grown ups that ment, not just any grown up)

~ No arguing - talk about differences calmly

~ Respect eachother

~ Take care of eachother

Nice list huh?  I thought they had some great ideas!  A great list, but that wasn't going to be enough, they need somethign to motivate them to find ways to be kind to eachother.  I told them that when I catch them doing something kind, I'll put a star point on the chart.

The name of my daycare is Caring Heart Child Care

Next I told them that when they get 100 points they will earn a Pizza Party, complete with pizza (of course) popcorn, pop, and a movie!

What happened next was a beautiful thing, one of the older girls started reading a book to one of the little kids, and two others started picking up toys and asking me what they could help me with! 

They earned those first 6 stars in the first hour of having the chart on the wall!

I had been a bit worried about how the day would go since it was the first day of summer vacation and it was raining almost the whole day, but Friday ended up being one of the most peacefull, happiest, kindest days we've had!

Let's hope the kindness chart keeps working because I want more days like that!

The one where I'm embarrassingly dense

I seem to be on a Babydoll blogging kick these days, maybe that's because I've put her up for sale 12 times in the last couple weeks.  Just yesterday I told Spence that I was selling her to the highest bidder.  Babydoll was really driving me crazy, and I was so busy being mad at her and putting "sale" stickers on her forehead that I didn't realize the extremely, ridiculously, embarrassing to not have realized it sooner reason for her misbehavior.... SHE WANTED ATTENTION!  Excuse me while I slap myself on the forehead. 

I realized one evening that I hadn't been paying any more attention to her than I was to the other kids in my life.  I had been paying just as much attention to her as I had to my daycare kids, plenty of attention I must add, but it wasn't enough for her.  I am HER mom and she wanted a little extra attention.  After work I would jump into the kitchen and start making dinner while Spence would spend time with the kids.  By the time dinner with my little screamer (aka Little Man) was over and stuff was put away I was exhausted and didn't do much of anything until a couple hours after the kids went to bed.  This was time I should have spent paying more attention to my kids outside of daycare hours. 

After this realization I started taking time several times a day to cuddle with Babydoll.  A few minuets here and there to pull her into my lap and hold her in my arms.  Boy did she need that!  All three of our kids are big cuddlers and I had neglected my snuggle duties! 

Her behavior instantly changed!  She was calmer, I was calmer, my daycare kids were calmer, and we all got more cuddles in our day!  This morning I forgot to fit in some cuddle time with Babydoll and she reverted to that behavior that wound her up on a clearance rack.  I of course remembered my former revelation and her afternoon was a whole lot better!

So in a nutshell, Babydoll needs extra cuddles in her day, and that's a behavior modifier I can thoroughly get behind!

Night Terror

I'm still consider sharing our story, the one I told you I was considering sharing last friday, but for today I'm going to blog about Babydoll's less than wonderful nights lately.

Babydoll has not been behaving well, at all, at bed time. Supernanny has taught me how to get children to go to bed at night, but I haven't yet found the answer to a three-year-old who shares a room with her big sister and refuses to leave her sister alone and go to sleep every night. 

We put her to bed, she goes happily.  When we put Sweet Pea to bed an hour later Babydoll decides it's party time.  She talks to SP, talks to herself, sings, reads books, does puzzles, gets out of bed, "accidently" climbs up the bunkbed ladder into her sister's bed.  We struggle, SP cries because she wants to sleep, BD cries because she doesn't.  We've started putting happy faces on the calendar for the nights when she stays in bed and stays relatively quiet so that she and her sister can get enough sleep.  She knows when she gets 7 happy faces (not necesarily in a row) she'll get to do something fun with Nana. So far in the last week she's had 2 happy faces, which means 5 nights in the last week I wanted to pull my hair out. 

BD is tired at bedtime, and even if she's not, it's bedtime and she's going to bed.  Tonight we tried something else.  I put Sweet Pea to bed in our bed to wait for BD to fall asleep.  Without her little party buddy in there Babydoll did fall asleep pretty quickly, and then I moved SP back to her bed.  It is now 9:30 and quiet in the girls' room.   It worked for tonight, we'll see about tomorrow, but it can't be a perminent solution because I don't want SP to have to wake up everynight in order to go to bed.  If this continues to work, it'll just be long enough for BD to get used to falling asleep right away (since she will not be expecting her sister to be coming in an hour later, and staying up for her).  Hopefully once she learns how to fall asleep right away and not stay up for SP, we'll be able to go back to putting SP to bed in her bed without BD waking up to start the party.  Under no circumstances will either child be sleeping with us, just in our bed on a temporary basis, and just for an hour or less.

I just remembered that I was going to blog about Babydoll's rough patch (yes she is our "free spirit") and what I did and how it helped.  Perhaps tomorrow, because this post is getting long, and I need some water, and a glass of wine, and a massage, and a vacation, and a magic wand...