What a Week...

Our lives normally are pretty routine, scheduled, orderly. This week has been one of sheer chaos, to the point that I have cried an endless number of times and my normally calm husband has nearly hit breakdown mode several times as well. I don't have time to go into the details at the moment. I thought that starting a new year today would turn over a new leaf on this week, but it culminated in the little one splitting her lip and experiencing her first blood-shed. Now, I know that accidents and owies are a part of childhood and that I shouldn't be surprised, but since she's such a careful kiddo, we have gotten by without any major incidents. But she was playing in the basement while we went upstairs to make lunch (as she often decides she'd rather do) and the next thing I know, she's wailing and standing at the bottom of the stairs, dripping blood. I felt like the WORST mother in the world for not being there when she fell (she hit her lip on the wooden ballister at the bottom of the steps- there's a gouge in the wood where her tooth must have hit). When it was all said and done and she was calm, I cried while cleaning the blood off the carpet. I didn't cry for the sake of the carpet, but rather because of the horror and pain of seeing my child bleed.

And so begins a new year...

It will get better, right?

Birthday Blast

34.5 weeks and 34 years of age and 17 inches of snow.

In my 34 years, I've never had a blizzard on my birthday (that I can recall). All plans on Saturday were cancelled due to the biggest storm in 20 years. I was pretty sad about it, as I was looking forward to family time during the day and a date night with my hubs. But it ended up being a fun day of making Christmas cookies and having our snowed-in neighbors over for cookies and drinks.

All that said, I am ready to not be trapped inside by the frigid weather and snow-filled streets. In the last 3 days, I have only ventured out a couple of blocks. I am about to go stir-crazy and I am pretty sure that Laila could use a change of scenery. Poor kid. Probably sick of her toys and parents by now.

Watching Daddy use the snowblower out back.

Clarify

I am looking back at my previous post at a later, calmer, saner time of day and think I should expound a bit. I think so much of my frustration with parenting is feeling that everything is my fault, for better or for worse. If she does something well, then we must have done a good job. If she is behind on her motor skills or has bad behavior or is a picky eater, then we (well, mostly ME!) must have done something horribly wrong. It all feeds into my insecurities that I am going to screw up my child, that she'll end up in therapy talking about all of the ways that I caused her to be a mess, and that I am just not cut out for this parenting thing. I end up second guessing decisions or looking back to wonder if we introduced foods at all the wrong time, in all of the wrong order, if we pushed them too much or not enough, and on and on. Wondering if her cautiousness and reluctance to walk independently is because she feels insecure because of something we did or something we forgot to do for her. It's enough to make a person crazy. To make a person feel inadequate. Hence, the "crazy lady" talk in the previous post.

And I have to wonder if this is just a modern day issue. I have a hard time imagining my grandmother, the farmer's wife, worrying like this. Instead, I'm sure she just did the best she could and assumed that her kids would learn to do all things in good time. But we are surrounded by books and blogs and talk shows and therapists and facebook status updates, all there to inform us of the things that others' kids are doing and a glaring reminder to me of the ways in which my child is different. And yet, there are times when I come across an article or talk to another mom who can completely normalize the situation for me, because their child did the exact same thing as mine is doing.

I know that these posts must make it sound like I don't enjoy my child or that parenting makes me cry 24/7, but it's more so in the quiet moments when she's napping that I can let it all soak in and the reality of my struggles tend to come out then. And I quickly need to vent it to my mom or sisters or blog about it, so that by the time Laila is awake again, I can put this stuff aside and be there for her.

Truly, we have so much fun with her and marvel at the things she has learned to do.

• Her list of words include Hi, Hot, High-Chair, Ham (sort of), Daddy (sometimes), and Yuck. Apparently H words are popular with her.
• She is obsessed with pushing her giraffe riding toy around (she hates to ride it, but loves to push it by the handles and cruises all over the house, practically running with the thing). Tonight she lifted it up completely by the handles and just stood there, holding it up. Apparently she has more balance than she realizes.
• She loves to dance and is surprisingly tuned in to whenever music is on. It can be pretty faint and she'll still pick up on it and do a little shake to the tune.

Note her beloved giraffe in the background. :)

Pity Party

I just need 5 minutes to have a giant pity party for myself and then, get back to doing life. I want someone to whine with me, to feel sorry for me, to be as weepy as I am about parenting and my child not being what I thought they were going to be. Honestly, I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall most of the time. I truly don't know what to do with a kid who refuses to walk, is a picky eater, who screams when we take her to Babes at church, who hangs onto my leg constantly when I'm in the kitchen. I just have moments in which I want to ask her (and have her reply!), "What kid doesn't like Cheerios or any other kind of breakfast food, for that matter?!??!?!" "What kid doesn't want the independence of walking around and exploring all on their own?" "What is wrong with the foods that I make for you!??!?!"

Of course, I can't say this to her, as I don't want to shame her for being the way that she is and I am trying SO hard to just be understanding of the phases that she's in and who she is as a 16 month old. I am trying to just love her as she is and encourage her and accept her. But DANG, this is hard, day in and day out.

OK, I'm done. I said what I need to.

Carnivore

The other night, Charlie said that if we asked a Magic 8 Ball what the chances are of Laila being a vegetarian, the answer would be "Not Likely".

How true it is.

The child LOVES meat in almost all forms that we've offered to her (heck, she even ate some venison sausage the other night), but veggies are (and always have been) another story. Steamed, raw, mashed, pureed, etc, it doesn't matter. It's a big fat "No" from her, which saddens me, as Charlie and I are not picky eaters and we always thought we'd have kids who ate everything just because we offered a variety of items from a young age on. Ha! However, I have found one glorious way of getting veggies into her...soup. She will shovel in any vegetable that is in soup. Is it because they're really soft and mild flavored after sitting in broth all day? Is it because they have spices and broth on them? I have no idea, but peas, green beans, legumes, carrots, celery, potatoes, tomatoes, etc all go right on down. My guess is that we'll be eating a lot of soup this winter. Not that I mind...

Trying to Simmer Down

My 13 month old doesn't walk, talk or want to give up her bottle. These three things give me nightmares of a kindergardener who crawls into class, babbling nonsense and dragging her bottle by the nipple alongside of her. I realize I am a bit dramatic about this, but I do have moments where my simple mom-brain goes this direction. Thankfully, Peanut's doctors are not concerned. They just tell me nonchalantly that the normal age for walking is 9-16 months, that she'll talk when she's ready and it's good that she does do some sounding of consonants in her babbling. The pediatrician just said to get rid of the bottle by the time she's 2. Sigh. I want someone else to freak out with me, but I don't think that's going to happen at this point.

My grand plan was to toss the bottle the day after she turned 1. Obviously, that didn't happen. She'll drink from a sippy just fine, but not if there's milk in there. She'll take one sip, glare at the cup, toss it aside and carry on until I put the milk in a bottle. I, apparently, have no spine for going cold-turkey anymore (unlike when we did the bedtime pacifier removal at 3 months of age and took it away until she was old enough to learn how to put it in by herself).

In this day and age of so much info on the internet and everyone comparing stories of what their child does and how early they are on their development, it's hard not to feel like a failure of a parent when your child does things outside of the schedule that you have mentally made for them. Truly, they have their own schedule for when they're going to do these things. I can't make her walk any sooner. I had her in PT for crawling and learning to stand, as she was really behind on those skills and she has muscle weakness/joint laxity. I don't feel ready to start that for walking yet. We work on walking together and I talk to her all of the time, not in baby talk. She understands huge amounts of what I am saying (sometimes it's scary what she understands!!) and I know that one day she'll open up her mouth and repeat back to me all of the things I've been saying to her since she was born. In the meantime, though, it's hard not to wonder if she'll ever get it. And of course, I am hoping she'll master walking and get rid of the bottle by the time #2 comes along, as I will have very little time and energy to put into PT sessions and fights over the bottle vs no bottle at that point. Perhaps the idea of 2 under 2 has only added to my frenzied thoughts about how she's not meeting the goals I had expected. I need to simmer down, though. My goal for #2 is to be more relaxed, to just go with the flow, and not have so many ideas of how it should be. Such a grand goal.

Summer's End

It's Aug 31. Where did the summer go? I know that we all ask that question every single summer, but this year has been especially odd. June was a slow, excruciating month of nausea and exhaustion and therefore, I remember very little of it. July was more of the same, though with birthdays and lots of busy-ness thrown in. August was a blur, with friends staying with us for 5 days (2 extra adults and 2 extra kids in our house=controlled chaos), followed quickly by preparation to go to the cabin for 9 days. After the cabin, it was quick returns to work and trying to settle back into normal life. And there it was. The summer.

While most of me doesn't comprehend that summer is over, there is the sure sign in me that summer is almost over: I have started to despise the gardens. It's something that happens every August, whether my gardens look great or utterly neglected. The sad part is, my few veggie plants usually don't produce until August and by then, I am so sick of tending to them that I can barely muster excitement to care for the ripening peppers or fend off the damn squirrels from my tomatoes that have started to turn red. I will say, though, that picking a Brandywine tomato and eating it for dinner right away or grabbing herbs for cooking just by stepping outside my door is pretty great and renews my enjoyment of gardening.