Parenting OR Am I Doing It All Wrong

Sometimes I get the itch to blog. But, I have nothing to say. Honestly, most days around the Bear house are pretty much the same. And our same isn't always that exciting. Well, Jaime thinks it is, but he is easy to impress! So, tonight I got the feeling that I wanted to blog. Like I need to pee, only I need to blog instead? Yep. I pushed it off since I could peruse Facebook instead without putting any thought into it at all. But the feeling stayed and I'm not tired (thanks to a sweet husband who let me sleep in this morning, whoa I'm not used to sleep!) so here I am.

There is one thing on my mind lately. It's there a lot because it is ever present in my life. Parenting. It's hard. I want to be completely honest but complete honesty makes me look bad, and it makes me feel sad. But, here it is. Mad Maddie is rough these days. I waiver between feeling like Stephen and I have too high of expectations, or perhaps don't truly understand what is normal behavior for little kids (perhaps a little of both?), and feeling that Maddie is a truly spirited child. I think it really is a bit of both of those things. I struggle with the yelling that so often accompanies her activities. I feel guilty when I don't have the time/hands to clean, nurse the baby, AND pay attention to her constantly. Add to that the time I spend on myself, showers, computer time, coffee, 15 minutes to stare at the wall and have no one touching me, I guess I put her off too often.

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We aren't the sort of family that has crafts and projects going every week, so often her activities are reading, coloring, and playing with her toys. No pretty blankets and picnics out in the woods, or trips to the market with mini child sized carts. No season pass to the zoo where we bundle up even in the bone cold Winter to watch the polar bears laze around. Our days have too many trips to "the stairs", which is a non-excluded version of time out. She never really sits there but she also can't be running amok and causing trouble for a few minutes, which we HOPE gets her to calm down just a bit. I tell her no, be quiet, stop doing that, put that away, go play in your room, way too much for my own liking.

I was so annoyed she wouldn't smile for this picture. Mom fail.

The hardest part is, she is amazing. She is SO affectionate and tells me constantly how much she loves me. She adores Jaime, hugging kissing, rushing to his side when he wakes after naps. I feel like if I could JUST find her best way of disciplining things would be easier/better. We talk, we try to talk things out, allow her to have feelings, problem solve when she does something that isn't ok (hitting, mean words, yelling, waking the baby, torturing the cats, bossing her cousins.....etc), but the lessons never really last until the next episode. Which could be 5 minutes later or a day later, we never know. I want her to thrive while keeping my own sanity. I just don't.know.how.

The best big sister. The best.

I feel like we need a screen free week VERY soon. A week without tv, for any of us, computer, ipads, or phones (except for phone use). I bet if I eliminated the time on all of that we'd have more done around the house and have more time to play the way she wants. At the heart of all of this I believe that more time on her terms would be a good solution. Maybe a membership to the zoo is in our future.......

Belated Mother's Day Post

I really missed out on talking about Mother's Day, about how much I love being a mama to my sweet Mad girl and how excited I am to watch my first baby love this new baby. Maybe it's a cliche to be so happy "just" being a mama but if it is I don't care, I love it and I'm not ashamed to shout it from the roof tops, or the top of Facebook which is what I do on a daily basis. So I'll just give a little shout out right now.....belated as it may be.

Riding the carousel at the Zoo. I had to steal this from Stephen's FB page so forgive the blur.

 To be honest I never knew how much I would love it. When I was a kid it was just what every other little girl wanted to do, so I wanted it too. I loved babies, especially my sweet brown haired baby sister who I adored from the moment I saw her tiny face (I don't recall the birth of my other younger sister much but my parents say I adored her just as much), but as I got older I questioned my own ability to be a good mother. One with patience, one smart enough to teach her children all the things they need to know (I won't lie the thought of teaching my Mad how to read still petrifies me!), it all felt very intimidating.

So being thrown head first into motherhood really worked out well for me. I was better than I thought I'd be but old enough to know my struggles and I still have to work on them every single day. And that's it. I love it even when I want to pull my hair out. Because that is part of motherhood you know. I'm surprised my own mother has any hair on her head because God knows what hell we've all put her through.

On that note I'll say that I'm lucky to have had the best mother in the world because I'd probably be a lot worse than I am if I didn't have such an amazing example of what motherhood should be. I only wish she thought she was as amazing as ALL of her children do. Even if/when we don't show it the way we should.

I also missed out on a birthday post for my AngryBear. He deserved a great one because he is so wonderful. It doesn't take much for me to look around and see that I lucked out when he fell in love with me and put up with all of my nonsense (he still does!). Father's Day is coming up and I can't wait to give him a post that is deserving of him. Also, he is OLD you guys. That means in a few years I'll be old too. Not looking forward to it!

Maddie loves her daddy. Another stolen FB picture.

A Sleep Story

A week, or two, ago I wrote a post about sleep. Not my sleep, though I am involved, but baby/toddler/kid sleep and what "they" do and don't tell you to expect and what of all that is actually true, in my humble experience. But as I wrote it just all got jumbled and I lost what I was really trying to say. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time. So I bagged it and didn't write anything for a while. Luckily for me I'm not a real blogger so this is totally ok.

I have been wanting to write about sleep though and I really am going to do it, right now. Our battle with sleep has been long and difficult. It's caused many tears and fights and worries about if I am doing anything right at all. Just last night The Bear walked down the stairs and gave me "the eyes" from the doorway. "What's wrong?" I asked, or something to that effect. "She's still awake," he growled, not really at me but at the Universe in general, or maybe at me but if that's the case I'm oblivious & also I shouldn't be saying so on my blog. "Send her down to me but tell her she's sleeping in the little bed."

Passed out on the couch, mama bed napping with the kitty, sleeping on the floor of her bedroom, sleeping in her bed with her favorite napping blanket. P.S. we have gotten rid of the binky since some of these pictures were taken

 The little bed is an Ikea crib mattress that sits on the floor, with sheets blankets and pillows, next to my side of the bed. The intention was to get her out of our bed with the hopes that she might tire of sleeping on the floor and start going back to sleep in her own bed. Some nights she doesn't ask to sleep in our bed with us at all she just come down, wakes me for good measure, and gets comfy somewhere on the floor and sleeps the rest of the night. Other nights she asks to get in bed with us and cries if I say no. Then she asks for water, medicine (because she likes the idea of something being wrong to add to her drama), hand holding and songs and I give her all but medicine unless of course there really is something wrong.

The Little Bed. It's a great play spot during the day when mama needs to rest. 

 So, most nights we get the bed to ourselves and it has vastly improved my quality of sleep. With Mr. Bear I'm never quite sure because even if I hear him snoring all night long he never seems to have gotten the right amount or type of sleep he needs to feel rested. Sometimes I still let her in my bed, because I can't lie and say that I don't love it when we can all get comfy. She is soft and warm and when she is snuggled in our bed on a good night we don't wake at all until morning which means I feel more rested. I worry about what happens when the little baby arrives and takes the coveted spot at my bedside in the little co-sleeper. Hopefully she and Mr. Bear are both ok with the transition to his side of the bed.

Napping in mama's bed after an afternoon outing, family naps on the weekend, the snuggles that make all the difficult times worthwhile.

With all the difficulty we have faced there remains the silver lining which is nap time. It's not always easy to get her to go down, in fact, just the other day we had a face off that is terrifying to recall. Usually this only happens when she is overtired and expecting something fun like visits from friends or a Grammy night. Anyway, no it isn't always a walk in the park but the days of missed naps are few and far between and I'd say that even with the struggle the nap is well worth it. For her and for me. She knows to expect it and I think some days she actually looks forward to it. She'll be 3 this September and I know nap time is going to fade into a distant memory eventually but hopefully not too soon. My girl who wakes at least once every night and is up with the sun every morning needs that extra hour or two of sleep and I savor every snuggle I get with her during these times.

So, that is our current sleep story. What's yours?

Bye Bye Boobies

As the title might suggest this post is about breastfeeding, specifically about saying goodbye to breastfeeding *crie sob*. Kidding, I've been pretty much ready to wean my Mad for a few months now but she has not been a willing participant in the weaning process. Right now we're at this strange point where she will try to nurse in the night or mornings when she is sleeping on top of me anyway and I quickly wake up and offer her water or a binky (what did I say we got rid of that? Not so much).

My ultimate breastfeeding goal was 2 years, or whenever Mad was ready to be done if it was before that. When I first started nursing her as a newborn it was so difficult. During all those times I shed tears, and for a lot of moments at about 9 months, I never imagined we'd hit two years if it was always going to be so frustrating. Obviously we did, and then some.

Since her birthday The Bear has been asking, politely, about when I might wean her. Although I was soooo ready Mad made it pretty clear to the whole world that she was not about to get on board with weaning just yet. When I cut out her bedtime nursing session she took to falling asleep with her hands shoved down my shirt; not exactly the most gracious of alternatives. The less she breastfed the more attached she got to being skin to skin with me.

My snuggle bug happy to be in my arms

These days I wrangle her to sleep around 7:30 and somewhere between midnight and 2AM she crawls in bed with The Bear and I. It begins with a little hand, soft and cold, placed on my chest. Slowly she fidgets her way down into my shirt and she scratches and abuses my skin as she tries to find a comfy place for her hand. If I move it away and tell her "no hands" (my polite way of saying please don't squeeze mama's boobs!) she cries at me and rolls her whole body sideways trying to get her arms down my shirt while securing a spot on my chest to rest her head. If enough skin isn't exposed to fit her whole head she'll pull my top down until she has a resting spot. Pretty much the rest of the night is her rolling around trying to get comfortable, which she never really does, and kicking Mr. Bear in the head with her freezing cold toes.

What she USED to look like while sleeping with us

The good news is that I am REALLY close to having her totally weaned and she asks only when she is extra sleepy in the early early mornings. The bad news is that we are now stuck trying to figure out the whole sleeping space situation. It's a mess. If my previous paragraph doesn't convey that accurately enough let me assure you that IT IS A MESS!!! I am not rested and my body is sore and exhausted from wrestling my "cuddly" baby all night. The Bear, who was enjoying having her in bed with us for a while, is getting tired of being kicked with ice cold toes and getting no snuggles to show for it. Mad has this idea that she owns our bed and my body, which was kind of the opposite effect I was hoping for after the weaning process was done. Her desire to be close to me is so strong that she can't even watch morning television without being wrapped around me.

So, I'm stuck. I love my girl so so much and I want to find a way to respect her need to be near me (I love it too, really) without feeling beat on after a night of hardly sleeping. Somehow my thought was that age 2 would bring all kinds of physical space and restful nights, boy was I wrong!

Took this picture with my phone as I was editing this post and HAD to add it. I don't usually allow the binky unless she's asleep but she was crabby and I suck at saying no, OBVIOUSLY!

A Chance to Change?

Lately I've been wondering a lot about my thoughts and ideas on parenthood and how, if I get the opportunity to do it again from the very beginning, I would do it differently (I am so so so NOT pregnant, not for a while I hope, but that doesn't mean I don't think about it).

First of all I would find a fairy to grant me three wishes and every single one of them would be that The Bear and I would agree on all parenting issues. That would basically have solved ALL of our contention the past 2 years of our lives together. I hate knowing that if we disagree one person is going to feel that they "lost" and perhaps their parenting opinions don't matter as much. Mostly that would be The Bear. He knows it and I know it. I don't love that it is that way but I'm not foolish enough to deny it. Somewhere in my heart I believe that if we both had supported* each other a little more the difficult months would have been easier to move through. I wouldn't have felt like I was constantly searching for a way that we both agreed with and just stuck to the same thing from day 1. There is no going back but I hope if we do it again some day there will be less debate on how and what to do and more action. Consistent and calm action.

Secondly, and this is a big one, I would stop WONDERING, out loud mostly, how to make my child do what I wanted and expected. The wondering led to discussions, which led to disagreement, which led to attempts at other ways, which led to frustration, which led to more disagreement, and ultimately led us back to the same thing I was doing in the first place. If I just did what my heart told me was right, without the tears (my own) because things weren't perfect and complaints of exhaustion and frustration, we would have moved through with less contention and those long months wouldn't  have dragged on and on. I hate recalling all the conversations wherein I analyzed every little thing she did trying to figure out the best way to parent her (sleep, let's be honest, I've stressed about sleep this.entire.time). I would have been so much happier if I just stopped talking about it. In the end I am who I am and I can no sooner let her cry for hours on end when she just wants me close to her than The Bear can stop eating cake pops from Starbucks. It's part of who we all are...compulsive cake pop eating and all.

Sleeping with all of her things

Thirdly? Stop trying to control everything. I'm a control freak when it comes to my beloved daughter, I can't deny this even though I feel a little ashamed from time to time. Next time around I think it would ease a lot of that new baby pressure if I didn't freak out quite so much. Chances are The Bear is not going to snap her neck when he pulls her out of her bed for a diaper change but according to me it's a miracle Mad survived the first 6 months when he was in charge of her care. I won't stop missing my babies when I am away from them for even a moment, I won't stop sending huge lists of "how to's" when they go to Grammy (my mom) or Manna's (his mom) house, I won't stop describing every detail of how I get them to sleep, I won't stop loving them with every inch of my being....but I really hope that I can leave The Bear with our new baby without agonizing over the fact that he doesn't do things exactly the way that I do. Mad is proof that he did something right (a lot of things) because never has a little girl loved her father more than my Mad loves her daddy. He is the first person she looks for in the morning and business trips are getting so difficult now that she spends half her days asking "where he is?" until the moment he walks through the door. I love that because I love him so much too, so I totally get it. We both like shoes, shopping bags full of new stuff, and an AngryBear. Twinners!

But....if I didn't change a thing? Well, I have to think that despite all my (many) flaws I must have done something right. Because I made this (with a little help ;) and I think she is pretty.damn.amazing.

Playing in her hut. She loves this thing.

*The fact is, The Bear was so supportive of me and my choices, even when they didn't line up AT ALL with how he thought things should be done or what he was used to in his family. He might not always understand what I do, or why I do it, but he will always defend me. I really love that about him and it is just one more reason why I am so lucky to have him. I was the one who struggled to support any way of doing things that wasn't MY way. So, I fail, I'm working on it. I promise.