Day in the life of...

I really hate days when Anya skips her nap. By the end of the day, her behavior becomes predictably unpredictable. I never know if she's going to be tantrum-y, whiney, wired, or grumpy. But I do know that on those days, Chris can't get home soon enough, and I'm about at the end of my last little bit of patience by the time he walks through the door.

No exception yesterday.

She was a lovely combination of whiney, wired, and demanding. At least she wasn't throwing epic tantrums. She did get into the coffee (insisting that it was her turn brew it). And of course, she dumped ground coffee all over the floor before I could pull it out of her hands. You'd be surprised at how quickly she can get to something she wants, even if it's put away "up high". Actually, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you're probably not the least bit surprised. And then later on she got the neti pot, filled it with water and shoved it in her nostril. When I tried to take it out of her hands, she screamed, "NO I'M A BIG GIRL AND I NETI POT BECAUSE I HAVE A BOOGER IN MY NOSE!" I had to laugh at that one. And because I was already exhausted by that point, I just said "whatever. Just don't break it." And left the room. I don't know how much water made it in her nose, but it was not broken and was surprisingly put away in the right spot when she was done.

And there were many other annoyances with her yesterday afternoon, but Chris eventually made it home and Anya was still in one piece when he got here. Successful parenting!

And as expected, she's been pretty awful this morning too. But is quietly sleeping in her room for what I hope will be a much longer than usual nap.

(long) qotd

"When Dondon gets here, I'm going to eat a snack. And then I'm going to tuck him into bed. When he wakes up, I'm going to show him the baby wolves. Not the big ones, the little baby ones."

My dad is flying to town today. We're looking forward to seeing him.

stuff and things

Anya picks up a lot at nannyshare, hanging out with the older kids. Usually that's a good thing. The older kids are very much into the "imaginative play" stage right now. They talk about various monsters and create scary beasts to fear. And then they act this out, screaming and hiding and then vanquishing said beasties. Anya had been joining in the play for quite awhile, but just mainly in the screaming, running, and giggling parts since she had no idea what was going on.

Cut to the other week: we're at home and she declares that she sees a giant bear in the hallway. I gasp, "oh no!" and Anya becomes frightened and her eyes tear up. Something similar happened the next day too. I (not quickly enough) figured out that she wasn't entirely sure if what she was "making up" was real or not. She just knew how the game went for the big kids. By going along with it, I inadvertently affirmed it and then she got scared.

After taking a friend's advice, I downplayed the scariness of the monster. Mom, see the giant robot in my bed? me: Oh. We should probably get him a blanket. Would you like to pick out a stuffed animal for him to snuggle up with? That kind of response seemed to do the trick. Because a week or two later, she still makes up the monsters several times a day and really seems to get that they are just pretend. It's pretty cute now because she asks us to hide under the covers or a blanket with her (and Laika too) and she just giggles and talks about the monster and it's likes and dislikes. Did you know that the girl-crocodile that lives under my bed only likes to eat apples?
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I took down the top-of-the-stairs gate to the upstairs this morning. I had left it there for times when Anya would play upstairs while I was on the computer, so I wouldn't have to worry about her not looking and falling down the stairs. Yesterday, it became very clear that it was more of a hazard than protection. We hosted PEPS last night and we always put Laika in the basement (poor puppy :-( ). But I thought she'd be more comfortable upstairs, so I put her up there for the first time. Bad idea. While we were eating dinner, Anya was eerily quiet, so I went to see what she was doing. Of course, up to no good. She was on top of the stair gate. When I say on top, I don't mean just straddling and on her way over. I mean completely on top. Her little knees were on the top edge and she had one hand on the post and one on the gate, balancing. I managed to pull her off safely and reprimand. But it really scared me. Ugh. Gives me the jeebies just thinking about it. I sure am glad I have that "mom sixth sense" thing going on. Anyway, gate is gone, so that's one less thing she can hurt herself on.

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Cute, from PEPS last night. Cora and her parents were the last ones to leave. Before they left, Anya asked Cora to sing "cows are in the meadow" (a co-op made-up verse to Ring Around the Rosie that has hand movements associated). Of course, Cora didn't know what she was talking about and I told Anya that Cora didn't know it. So Anya sat down on the ground to teach Cora the song and movements. And Cora sat down and learned them from Anya. We all thought that was pretty great. They're little people! So neat.

Bandaids Fix Everything

A bit ago, Anya was listening to one of her (terribly grating) children's cds and dancing around the room when it started skipping. From the kitchen, I heard "Uh oh! The cd is broken." And then a minute later, a crinkling sound from the hallway. I peaked around the corner and saw Anya with this:

 

Her explanation was that she was fixing it. "The cd fell down and got a boo-boo."

Surprisingly, it didn't work very well in the cd player after her fix. Oh darn, I guess we'll have to put it in the garbage and never get to listen to it again.

Progress

Today marks week 3 since revisiting potty training and reward charts. So far she's been to the aquarium, to the zoo twice, to the community center tot gym, and with Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig to look at helicopters for her rewards (if you're noticing a descrepancy in the photo versus rewards, I had tossed the first two completed charts a few weeks back). My friend/neighbor Shannon said that if you can make it 3 weeks potty training, then you're golden. I don't know that it's habit with Anya and I wouldn't consider her potty trained yet, but she's certainly surpassed what little expectations I had with this go-round.

We're getting there. She's had a few days without accidents and occasionally goes potty without one of us suggesting it first. Grandma Lodwig told me that while taking a nap (she stayed with them over the weekend while Chris and I took a lovely birthday ski trip to Mazama), she got out of the room, went into their bathroom and then went back to bed when she was done.

All in all, I'd say the reward charts have been a big success. She is starting to get a little bored of them, so I let her pick out some exciting scratch & sniff stickers at the store today. My hope is that if we can make it through just one or two more charts it'll be habit and she won't need any extra incentive.

What's hard for me with this process is that I can't make her do it. I can only encourage, be patient (or at least act it) and give little incentives and corrections along the way. Pressuring certainly doesn't work and actually has the reverse effect. She's doing all the work and all the decisions are up to her. This isn't like taking away the pacifier or sleep training where I call the shots. I guess this is what parenting is about. And it's weird to think that we'll be dealing with things like this (well, hopefully not JUST like this) until she's an adult and the same basic rules will apply.

Great Balls of Cotton

Very annoyingly, the threat and execution of time-outs have stopped having an effect on our little misbehaver. Well, that's not entirely true. They briefly stop her from her negative behavior for the duration of her time-out -- as she plays with the toys in her room or makes funny faces/sings at the wall corner she's staring at. But emotionally, she appears unfazed. Sometimes even amused. And then once the time-out is over, she occasionally continues doing what got her into trouble to begin with.

New plan of attack. Sheri (the nanny) shared with me the idea of having a jar that you fill with cotton balls (or whatever) when they do nice things/take away when misbehaving. And then once they reach x number of balls in the jar, they get a reward. I figured I'd give it a try since I have nothing to lose, but I had my doubts as to whether she'd care in the least. Or if she was even old enough to get the concept.

Turns out it was a brilliant idea and has been amazingly effective for the last 2 weeks. Seriously. Like magic. And we don't know if she really "got" that there was a reward for reaching 10 balls in the jar. It mainly seemed about putting them in the jar, seeing them, and making sure none of the precious balls were ever taken away.

Just one quick threat of taking away a cotton ball sends her into near tears and she shapes up immediately. So much so that she had a nightmare the other morning; she woke up at 5 or so crying. When I went into her room to see what was wrong, she wailed, "I want my cotton ball!!!" --which she always says when she loses one. Hehe. No monsters under the bed or dreams about kids being mean. Her biggest fear is losing cotton balls.

On a happy note, she finally reached 10 balls this afternoon because she put away the books that were scattered on her bedroom floor. She chose to go to the community center play space for her "special treat". She seemed pretty excited when we got home about starting over with 1 cotton ball.

I'm really going to enjoy this while I can because I don't know how long it's going to work. It sure is cute for now, though. Kids' minds are funny.