Stats: 125 lbs (down 1.8 from yesterday or 1 from my Wednesday weigh-in.)
Eating: No chocolate, but I did have crackers and cheese this evening. Oops.
Exercise: Does lifting a toddler in and out of the pool for 1.5 hours count?
Dogs: I haven't mentioned euthanasia today. Not once.
Relationship with J: Hooray Sarah Palin for giving us something other than children to gab about.
Parenting:
June 26 was the last day of preschool for the girls until August 25. I like the college's child development center, but its closing for summer break does not work for me. Despite having hired a sitter for 15 hours a week, one week in, I am not entirely certain that I am going to survive the break. At the moment, it seems like the girls move from one meltdown to another, and I am sometimes melting down with them. This week, E (nearly 5) is leading the way (overtired? should I try to force her to nap?), but M (nearly 3) has her moments, and her standard response to my requests or commands is a somewhat regal "I will not."
It isn't just the individual meltdowns and defiance that have me on edge. There is something about the way they interact, that seems to bring out the worst in each other. Separate, they tend to behave, but together, well, that is another story. When I was pregnant with M, I had this hazy, pleasant image of a future in which two little girls--best friends and sisters!--held hands as they skipped along the beach. While that happens--sometimes-- at any given moment it is more likely that they are squabbling over a toy that, though it has been in the toy box unnoticed since Christmas, is now VERY important and MINE, MINE MINE. On the positive side, I have learned that if I confiscate said toy, I can be a uniter, not a divider, because my action results in a sense of solidarity between the girls along with agreement that mommy is a "mean meanie."
Today, I am afraid that I snapped as much as I usually do. J, who had the day off, suggested that I just ignore them, but I will have to work on that harder. The whining and squabbling are like the drip, drip, drip of water torture.
*The terrible twos weren't so bad for my girls, but at about 2.75 year, all hell breaks loose.
Up up and away
11 years ago
2 comments:
I came to say yippee for two days of posts in a row, and look, here's a third!! Wow!
Interesting that you say 2.75 is way worse than 2 - Ant is just 2.75, and has been driving me batty recently. Grabbing toys from Timmy, hitting, kicking him...and the whining and crying - OH MY GOD! Especially when they're BOTH crying at me I just cannot take it. So you are definitely not the only one with that gene.
I have to say, though, I hoped it would be done by the age of five. I'm not thrilled to hear that it isn't!
I hope the skippy sister stuff comes around soon!
Look at me with two hands free now! Sorry for the crazy comment the other day.
You are absolutely right that 2.75 is when things get ugly. Middle girl was born just before Big G hit that age and so at the time, I chalked up the 1.5-2 years of insanity up to the fact that I'd ruined his life. Fortunately (there's looking at the bright side), Middle Girl started with it a couple of months before Little Girl was born, so I had a chance to say to myself "don't blame the baby for this, this is just how she's going to be for a while."
I absolutely can not handle this stage. My child psychologist friend has a theory that different parents have different phases that really push their buttons and maybe its related to the mom's own personality/anxieties/etc. For me, I think that I have such a need to be in control that when the kids hit the phase that's all about them having control (and making utterly irrational demands), I totally lose my head.
Big G got a lot better at 4.5 and is almost always pleasant since about 5.5 (except when he's not).
Not to get all ass-vicey on you, but I do think that the sibling rivalry thing is best handled by staying out of the fights as much as possible. I *try* to make them work it out when I can. It's a lot easier just to jump right in and start screaming back at them, but if I can stay all blase about it and tell them that they need to figure out a solution (usually tasking the older one with figuring out a way to share whatever it is, accompanied by my threat that I will have to take whatever it is away if they don't work it out themselves). The book, Siblings without Rivalry, has some good parts worth reading.
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