Sunday, May 30, 2010

Ah, THERE's the rabbit hole!

My perfect recipe for a rabbit hole day: slightly sick child (she has the chicken pox, it hardly shows except she is very difficult to talk to and is more stubborn, like transitions are even harder than they normally are....but not sick enough that it stirs all my motherly sympathy, you know?) + sleep-deprived mother + no one else around (husband away at family event, no visitors due to chicken pox). I still try teasing her to get cooperation, but I find that when she's, what's it called, noodling, BAM! I become a bitchy dictator.

More later, Kiki is on...and I'm crying about it! What a strange day....

[Later] Okay, funny, but perhaps it was the posting, but I've been looking back at the day and there are two big revelations:

(1) I really recognize the difference between an encouraging household and one that's not now. Because I had SEVERAL episodes today where I was essentially saying "Look what you did! What a disaster, I can't believe you screwed up/are screwing up like this!" I mean, I might say some of that stuff normally, like "The room is a real mess now," but today I was really being judgmental. And it did NOT feel good, and I did NOT like the message I was sending. On the positive side, I had had ambiguity about whether I was creating an encouraging household, and now I'm much more confident that I usually am!

(2) Fiora did some really great things today, despite having the pox and having a cranky mama. We went into the front garden to pick strawberries in the afternoon, and I got pissed off that she STILL hadn't figured out that non-red strawberries are sour and that she wasn't listening to my well-earned wisdom that if you pick non-red strawberries you'll end up with fewer ripe sweet ones tomorrow. Despite me blowing my top (back to my button about feeling like someone's not listening to me), I kindof turned things around by deciding to do something I actually WANTED to do instead of watching her pick strawberries that I really wanted to become juicy red strawberries (which wask useless behavior on my part), so I started cleaning all the debris off the garden steps, and then discovered I could use it as mulch in a weedy part of the garden. Cool! I even invited Fiora to help me, and she did (once), and after that she played on her own up at the top path in our front garden...which is actually a big achievement, since previously she often took the steps down the driveway which resulted in both of us going inside (being in the front garden was contingent on not going into the driveway without an adult).

Soon after, she invited ME into the driveway (there are a few strawberries there), which was nicely done. And there, instead of trying to go for a walk in the neighborhood (which I often don't want to do), she wandered onto the lawn on the other side of the driveway (never has she made such a choice before). I really appreciated that, we kindof wandered there and I started weeding (looking back, I'm proud of having the flexibility to do gardening work wherever she was instead of getting stuck somewhere on some particular task!). Then she wanted to get in the Fit (car), which she loves wandering in, so I let her get in. She took off her diaper there, and I said that was okay (it was wet), but I left one door open and asked her to let me know if she needed to go potty. A few minutes later, I look up from weeding and she's standing next to that door and not moving - turns out, she's pooping on the driveway! At the time, I was kindof angry because I had to clean up all this messy poop on the driveway, and she hadn't let me know it was happening...but in retrospect, she had listened to me request her using that door if she needed to potty, and had done what she had to do. (It was a messy poop, and I suspect some urgency!)

So, anyway, lots of good stuff going on, too, and most of that I can link back to good habits I've been working on this year via PoT. I'm really proud of not tuning out, even though I really wanted to several times, and I think Fiora rewarded me for that.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Back on track, and percolating thoughts

Great to have Vicki on momtv tonight, after a 2 week hiatus (vacation last week, frozen connection the week before). Ahhhhhh.......

First, I have to say, I am so grateful to my husband for being such a participant in this. He is here for every single appearance of Vicki on momtv, and while his head always pops up when Vicki commands, "Stop multitasking and really listen right now!" (because he's blogging, or doing computer work, most nights), he does listen and comment. And he wants to know when I'm typing comments into the chat room. And I just love that he's an active part of this way of parenting in our family.

So, tonight we learned about permissive parenting styles, and I thought I was pretty totally permissive, but I only had one tick mark on the entire list for signs of permissive parenting. That was a real surprise. When I reviewed the list, I realized that without the training from PoT over the past 6 months, I might've gone down some of the paths of permissive parenting, but I'm much happier not being there (I would've done so out of a sense of guilt, I think). Anyway, the one thing I do permit is for Fiora to climb from her chair to mine after she's finished eating dinner. She picks at my food sometimes, or offers me food. As long as I'm near the end of my meal, I don't mind, because I haven't had much physical contact with her all day while I was work, and it gives us an excuse to snuggle before bedtime. If I'm still actively eating, often Bri has finished and he'll invite her to sit with him, so it's working out for now. Now, of course, I'm anticipating articulating some of that to Fi.

Although I missed the discussion on authoritarian parenting (hm, I could still watch the archive! Must do that!), I'm realizing that Fi totally calls me out when I'm being authoritarian and absolutist. She freaks out, gets angry, and it makes me review what I was doing. Then I try another approach and, generally, it works. She's such a great teacher! Of course, she also does that for rules and boundaries which we deliberately set (bedtime is still the biggest trigger), but she'll set her anger aside after a while.

On the topic of messy, thinking children, I was encouraging Fiora to find ways to express her anger safely the other day (because another kid made her scared). So...she's been practicing roaring like a lion! It's so amusing, when we make her angry lately (time to go to bed, time to stop playing with that toy because we have to leave), she roars at us! And I can say, "Wow, you're really feeling angry about having to interrupt that game." And she really seems to appreciate her anger being heard. And you know what else? It SO fits our family style! When she was younger, and I would get totally overwhelmed with stuff, I would just yell out! Then I'd tell her I was okay, just angry for a moment, and we'd go on. I'd almost forgotten about that (life has been better recently).

One permissive thing I do: I help her look for her binky, or even find it for her. But only if she's tired or sick. If she's bright, I encourage her to find it, and she often does. If she's frustrated, I offer some ideas of where to look and wait a while (while she goes to look) before I help her. It's transitional-permissive. :)

I could've gotten stuck with the clothes issue. I LOVe letting her pick out her clothes, regardless of weather or plans. But there were moments when I'd pick something out for her, or offer some suggestions that were rejected, when I was dangerously close to being angry over...what? PoT guidelines kicked those emotions in the butt and quick, and thanks for that. Most of the time, she actually lets me pick her clothes, and I enjoy that, but my favorite moments are when she picks her own random stuff!

And just a note: going out to the car had some signs of becoming a contested event. But it still goes really smoothly. There were a few weeks when she adored going in by the driver's side door and wandering around the the car on her own (emergency brake in place, of course!). And when we had time, I'd let her do that while I did some laundry (checking on her every minute or so) or weeded part of the front garden. And when she seemed calmer, or when I needed to go, she had to get in the car seat so we could go. When she didn't want to, we played chase in the car (which always ends, like chase does, with me winning - it's amazing that she loves this game so much, but we both win, because she's giggling and having fun and so am I!). And now, she loves getting in her own door and climbing into her carseat - it's the newest skill. Letting her have some time to explore on her own and using fun kept things really good, and I love that!

Til later!

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Land of Vacation

Whew, a week spent driving from CT to GA and back again, with two dogs and a toddler - that was something. Strangely enough, it wasn't terrible, and I'd do it again, but not anytime soon!

What I'm wondering is, how did PoT happen while we were away and travelling? I think there was so much distraction and new interesting things to do, that our interactions flowed pretty smoothly. Of course, Family Meeting got snuffed again. Must happen this weekend! I'd really like it to happen in the morning, so I'll talk to DH about that.

Now that we're home, we're enforcing dinner rules again. If Fi gets out of her seat (except to get a dropped fork or some such), we ask her if she's all done (so she has a chance to say no and get back in her seat), and then she's not allowed to get at the table and eat again. So, she can leave early, but she can't wander in and out of the dinner table. She cried and fussed when we enforced this tonight (we were SUCH a tribe of nibblers while on the road!), but it held.

i've noticed recently that Fiora is "practicing" crying, even in mirrors, and certainly when she wants to be picked up. It seems innocent enough right now, but just writing this down, I'm realizing that I'd rather she be honest and ASK me to pick her up, or to sit on my lap, than to use emotion to get what she wants. In fact, even tonight, she was trying to get on my lap and just fussing to do so, and DH and I both requested that she use words, that she ask - she seemed to have trouble, I don't think she knew quite how to ask to sit on my lap, but then she finally asked and I said 'sure.'

she's using her words more and more, telling more elaborate stories, so cool! Still hates to put her breakfast bowl in the kitchen sink, but does it pretty quickly if she can get something she wants. Tonight we helped her get into her toy chest, and I realized we could use that as a privilege to help her learn to clean up the toys that are already out.