Today's entry title applies to several things - my "darling" Sweetie, my attitude, my day. And it all started some time in the middle of last week when I caught my husband's stomach virus. For him it lasted four or five days, for me only two. Or so I thought. Now it seems that for both of us it's morphed into some gland-swelling-muscle-aching disease. But Sweetie? She's okay. We think. That's part of the problem. She woke up whining/crying at 6:15am, which escalated quickly into full out whaling and screaming for the following hour. Her apparent problem? She desperately needed a "napkin". Then she didn't. Then she did. And so on. We told her if she stopped crying then she wouldn't need a napkin to wipe her face. To be honest I don't know what finally happened in that little brain of hers to make her suddening want to play blocks - and all was right with the world. I was just happy it was over.
Next issue - I made plans to meet a friend for coffee this AM at a nearby shop. But after Sweetie's early wake up call and awful cries, getting myself pulled together to get out of the house seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. But my husband said I should go, it would do me some good. I went. My friend didn't show up. Looking back I realize where the chain of communication broke down - she emailed me about going, I emailed "sure", she emailed a suggested time and I emailed "sure". That's it. I didn't get a final email from her saying she got my time approval note. And who actually picks up the phone anymore to communicate? How barbaric! I came home and even now in late afternoon I still haven't contacted her about where our plans went wrong. But neither has she. My excuse is the lousy way the rest of my day has played out.
(Oh yeah - I forgot. Before I left we were dealing with getting Sweetie to eat breakfast. Our biggest parenting "flaw", I think, is not eating in the dining room but rather sitting around the T.V. This is not working for Sweetie anymore, though, because she mostly ends up refusing to eat and instead wants to play. So we've started with her regularly eating in the high chair at the table. Before I left this A.M. she had maybe 5 bites of pancake and claimed she was done. My husband thankfully got her to eat a small bowl of strawberries while I was away. Later, for lunch, she had strawberries dipped in vanilla yogurt. That's all. Big whooped-de-do. She needs to eat more).
Back to this morning... I got home and my husband and I decided we'd drive down to B&N to return a book I just bought. He went to get ready while I stayed with Sweetie, pushing her along to get ready as well. Since our living room looked like about five small tornadoes had hit down to do their damage, I had just one request of my daughter - clean up your blocks. Too often we just leave the house as-is and come back to the toys all over the place. She needs to learn to take care of her stuff. But she refused. But she did want to go to the train store (B&N - they have a train station toy set up in the kid's section). My husband and I stood firm - no train store unless the blocks were picked up. I told her I'd help her. No. I told her she only needed to pick up the green ones. No. But we held our ground. About 20 -30 minutes later she changed her tune and happily picked up all the blocks. Again, I don't know what goes on in that little head of hers.
This excursion went well enough. She played nicely with the other children gathered around the train. She didn't resist too forcefully when we picked her up to go home. But getting her physically in the car was a fight between my husband and her. Then, once we got going, she whined that she wanted to go to the O store (Target - named for its bull’s eye logo). We tried to humor her by asking her why she needed to go there. She said "get cookies at O store". Now, we have bought cookies there maybe once ever. So more likely she's remembering things that my mom has bought for her on one of their many trips there together. But we said no. She cried - screamed - practically the whole 30-minute trip home. When we were just a few minutes from home she stopped. I looked back at her and found her just vegging. Her eyes were dazed over. She just looked "done". It dawned on me then that maybe she was behaving this way because she was sick. So far she had not succumbed to the crud that my husband and I have, so it stood to reason that it was now catching up to her. So I felt bad for being totally annoyed with her behavior. Then we got home.
It was time for her to have lunch, but she wanted to play a little. She did, then requested lunch. REQUESTED, mind you. But would she get into her high chair? Not without some drama, of course. Then she had that huge lunch of strawberries and yogurt. She didn't want the crackers I gave her or anything else I suggested. At least it was a pretty good serving of strawberries. Then off to nappy time.
She dutifully said night-night to Daddy as she climbed the stairs to her room with me. But at the top of the stairs, just as she did at yesterday's nap time, she turned the quick right into our bedroom instead of going all the way down the hall to her own. Yesterday my husband had to get her out of our bed for me and carry her to her crib. Today I actually got her to go to her room on her own, but she climbed into her big girl bed instead of letting me put her in her crib. She can't sleep in the bed yet. Make that, I know she WON"T sleep in the bed. She has to be in the crib for now. But I can't carry her, so I had to wait 'til she got out and neared the crib. Which she really never did. So after some time my husband came to help me out. I'm sure he heard her footsteps scampering about and my wild woman screams at her. Anyway, as soon as he entered the room I left in total frustration, and he plopped her in the crib and left too. She cried for about 1 minute, talked to her animals another 5 or so, then slept for more than 2 hours. I slept for most of that time too. She and I had both absolutely had it with each other.
Now everybody's up again, I feel better, and Sweetie is still somewhat clingy/whiney but mostly fine. Hopefully we'll all have a nice, relaxing and fun evening.
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