Discipline and the Preschooler

I haven't figured out a resolve to my image capacity issue yet, so bear with me. No pictures. (Gasp!) I did, however, update yesterday's post with a few vocabulary words I'd overlooked.

Now, on to disciplining our preschooler. He is really testing me this week. Doesn't help that we're coming off a week of "vacation" (no school for him and no work for Jack), and that Jack's been gone all week. I just feel like nothing is working. I believe part of it is the addition of two new babies - and part of it is just being four years old, and becoming an independent decision-maker.

But I believe that, to some degree, people will fulfill the expectations we set for them. Not entirely, but on some level. If we treat our children from a very young age, as if they will go to college, I think they are more likely to pursue a higher education than children who never hear mention of it. If we walk into meetings with an expectation of disappointment, we are more likely to come away feeling like "yep, that was disappointing." Likewise, if we are constantly correcting our children, we subliminally train them to expect to be wrong ... to expect to be punished ... and then they will do what they think they're supposed to do ... not even try to be right, or make mischief that lands them in trouble. There are exceptions. There are people who intentionally set out to disprove the expectations of them. But by and large, I believe these fulfillments tend to be true.

So you can understand, then, why I struggle with disciplining a certain preschooler all the time. I try reminding him when I have to punish him, that I know he's a good/obedient/kind boy, and that we need to show everybody else that he is, too. Or that I don't want any of my children getting hurt - him or E or G or G. It doesn't matter if I very nicely ask him to do something (or not do something), or if I scream until my voice is hoarse ... he doesn't listen. I threaten to take away iPad time, toys, treats ... even to box up and/or throw away (I often lock the play room door to keep them out) toys that are being misused. Doesn't matter. He even tells me "doesn't matter." When I finally follow through on a threat (today I actually did throw out a toy he'd been using as a weapon ... hadn't decided yet if I was going to secretly fish it out after bed time, but then while prepping dinner I tossed egg shells into the trash can, on top of it ... kind of sealed the deal there), he has such a coniption that it's a disturbance to the rest of the family. Or causes such a schedule delay that we are then late for school. Or eats up enough of my time during the babies' nap, that I can't finish the house work.

I try making sure he has one-on-one time. Because I get it. He can remember a time when he was an only child. And then two years later, there are three more babies taking my attention. Today I put the little three down for an afternoon nap (despite E having napped at mothers' morning out), ignored the fact that two of the three were crying, and spent time on the couch, reading with Carter. I thought it was really good bonding time. It was great. We read. We talked. I isolated words on the page and had him read them to me. For a whole 40 minutes. I can't tell you the last time any of the kids had 40 minutes of my undivided attention.

You know how he repaid me?? Not 10 minutes after I began rousing the little ones (and by rousing, I mean getting them out of bed, because they were all up and crying anyway), he came blasting into E's room, declared he had to go potty, took some of her dolls with him, threw a fit that I asked him to give her back her stuffed dolls, then pinned her down on the floor while I went into the nursery to get G&G out of bed. He was acting the same exact way he acts when I've spent the afternoon feeding babies and cleaning, and not giving him much attention. The only difference was, the house was still a mess.

So, I don't know. I share this frustration not to vent (because I already drowned my stress in a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookie bars), but because I don't know what else to try. Most of the time, right now, it's all mostly harmless testing of the limits. But occasionally it's not so harmless. And I want to make sure the boundaries are set now, so that more serious boundaries aren't tested 10 years from now.

I'm open to suggestions. Or even stories to reassure me. Because I also don't know how much of this is typical four-year-old drama.

Wordy Wednesday

New words (in the last two weeks) added to Ellyson's vocabulary. I'm sure there are more ...

Nana (spoken briefly this time last year, and then pushed to the side)
Tree
Fork
Bowl
Dad (her first word, which was replaced by "mama" as soon as she learned my name)
Boot
Book
Bee (as in "buzz-a-bee")
Beast (as in, Beauty and the Beast)
Cookie
Cat
Apple
Banana
Bah-bye

She also will repeat (or at least try) anything Carter tells her to say.

And, she can correctly identify the Disney princesses: Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, Rapunzel, Aurora, Snow White, Jasmine and Tiana. Aurora throws her a curve ball since she goes by a total of three names in our books (Sleeping Beauty and Briar Rose). And Tinkerbell, who is a fairy, not a princess.

Four Months

G&G are four months old today. Updates, updates ...

Food: Still 100% breastmilk, almost always nursing (occasional bottles of pumped milk with babysitters). Our freezers were overflowing with milk, so I broke down and re-qualified to donate to the National Milk Bank. I anticipate sending close to 1,000 ounces soon, just so we can have some breathing room in our freezers. Rough estimation (120+ milk storage bags per month for four months, each holding 5-6 ounces) would indicate we have about 2500+ ounces of milk currently frozen. And there isn't a cubic foot to spare in our two freezers. In fact, I sent a small cooler full to Jack's parents' house to store for me, until I can clear out room in our freezer.

Size: Clothes are very comfortable in 3M or 0-3M. Except for 0-3M footed sleepers on Graham. He must have long legs, because the 0-3M are too short. 3M (Carter's) are fine, and 0-3M onesies are fine - just nothing footed. They occasionally wear 3-6M clothes, but for the most part, those are still a little too big. Shoes ... they've outgrown their size 1 shoes. Probably in the range of 13-1/2 to 14 pounds each. I'm placing my official wagers on 13 lb, 4 ounces for Graham and 13 lb, 10 ounces for Grant - as of today. Add 6-8 ounces each to get my guesses for their checkup next week (13-10 and 14-2 are my guesses for their checkup).

Diapers: About 80% disposable and 20% cloth. The cloth diapers are fitting much better than they were at two and three months. The FuzziBunz one-size diapers definitely have a trimmer fit than the BumGenius and Bumkins one-size diapers; the BG and Bumkins are pretty bulky when they're folded this small; the FuzziBunz are not. When they wear disposables, they're still wearing size 1. However, we have mixed in some size 1-2 and some (small-fitting-brand) size 2 disposables. We have about 50 size 1 remaining on hand. When I factor in cloth as well, we will finish those within the week, and will move on to size 2.

Development notes: Grant finally rolled over (once) last week. Graham rolled over a number of times, and started using his feet and knees to scoot. Grant is learning to sit with support. Graham isn't so keen on that idea ... he tries to stand up! In that way, Graham is taking after Carter (who started walking at 10 months), and Grant is taking after Ellyson (who started walking at 14 months).

Sleep: Awesome. Have I stated that before? Well, they are. Grant sleeps a whole lot more than Graham, but they both sleep through the night (8 p.m. to 8 a.m.), and take a two-hour morning nap, a two-hour afternoon nap, and usually a short early-evening nap as well. They still co-sleep, though I am weaning the swaddling. Yesterday they napped without swaddles and did fine, so I continued the no-swaddle for overnight last night. I did switch them to fleece sleep sacks with their cotton pajamas.

Grant is still our thumb-sucking, babbling, smiling, social butterfly. Graham is our sometimes-passy-sucking, sometimes-finger-sucking, occasional smiler and babbler. He'd much rather work on trying to crawl, walk and jump. Grant is more concerned with making friends who are willing to hold him. :)

Graham has seemed to develop a buddy in my dad. We figure he has taken to his grandpa in particular because they can relate - both are the babies of the bunch. Grandpa was the baby of five in seven years; Graham is the baby of four in four years.

It is amazing to see how different each child is, even within one family (and set of twins)! I am trying to keep written/typed notes of each child's development and personality, because otherwise it is difficult to keep track of which child is/did what and when!

I have some adorable four-month pictures that I want to post, but I'm trying to figure out my Blogger photo storage limits. Apparently I have hit my limit. :) So I need to take some time to figure out how to work that ... until then, updated pictures of G&G are on my Facebook page.

The Power of Suggestion

I vented about E last weekend. Now I'm going to balance that vent, with something about her that I find adorable. She has this amazing way of saying one word to tell you what she's thinking about, then when you repeat that word, she smiles and says "okay" as if you've made the suggestion.

For example:
E: "Gummuh? Gummuh?" (This is her word for snack. Perhaps it stemmed from "gummies"? I don't know.)
Me: Snack?
E: " 'kay. Cheese?"
Me: "You want cheese?"
E: " ' kay." ... if you insist, Mama. And proceeds to open the refrigerator, remove a slice and hand it to me for unwrapping.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wordless Wednesday

The End of the Tube Era

Monday morning, Carter had his remaining tube removed from his ear. He and Jack woke up long before the sun, and left our house a little after 6 a.m. We'd explained over the weekend, that he'd take medicine to make him sleep, and the doctor would use long tweezer to take out the tube that was still in his ear. He told me the week prior that he'd been trying to get it out with his finger. ;-)

He did fine until they were called back to pre-op. Carter gradually began getting more tense, and then refused to put on the hospital gown. He was admittedly scared, so Jack called me, and I talked to Carter. I tried my best to reassure him, but there's only so much you can say when the fear really is of the unknown. So it didn't help much. Still refusing to change into the gown, he was given an oral dose of Lortab, which he promptly spit out. (And honestly, Jack and I both reacted with "Really? Lortab? Isn't that a little overkill?" Especially since he spit it out, and then didn't seem to have any persisting pain after the procedure. So was that medicine even necessary? Couldn't they have used just Tylenol, ibuprofen or a dose of each? Whatever.)

Carter's stuffed Peter Pan went with him. Peter even got his own ID bracelet (photo below) and accompanied Carter to the OR (until he went under anesthesia, and then Jack kept Peter with him).

Carter spent the rest of the day a little sluggish, had a little sinus drainage (nose and ears), but otherwise did great.

Richard Petty Driving Experience

Jack and Carter (and Jack's brother and parents) went to the Richard Petty Driving Experience at Atlanta Motor Speedway the other week. Carter was super excited about going to a race track. We were a little concerned he might be disappointed that he wasn't getting into one of the cars, but when he got there, he was more than okay with not getting in.

More Visits From the North

The other week (forgive the delay ... I hadn't loaded pictures from the good camera in some time), my mom's parents came to visit and meet the twins, en route from their home in Pennsylvania, to their winter home in Florida. The babies enjoyed being held for much of the day. Ellyson eventually warmed up (especially when she was allowed to put on her Minnie Mouse dress!), but still wouldn't move more than a few feet away from me.

Fun in the Leaves

Ever since the leaves started changing colors, Carter has been asking if we can gather them up in a pile and play in them. The other week, he visited Nana and Papa Jack's house, and finally got his wish.

Mommy's Little Terror

I swear, Ellyson makes it impossible for me to stay on top of the housework. Lately, she actually leaves me in tears. Often literally. One day not long ago, Jack had been gone with Carter, for most of the day. He came home late afternoon to find the house a mess and tears streaming down my face. He also had my favorite white chocolate Lindt truffles in hand, because he's awesome like that.

I'm sure Carter went through the same phase of being into everything. But there were two significant differences: (1) When Carter was this age (20 months old), he spent 45+ hours per week at daycare, so he was home a whole lot less. (2) Jack and I could tag-team our one child, so he was never that unsupervised. If he started getting into something, one of us could move him while the other continued to clean, work on dinner, etc. But Ellyson only spends 10 hours per week at MMO, and when she's home, our/my attention is split among four children. Two of those children require my undivided attention a miminum of four times per day, 30 minutes each time, for feedings.

It's not unusual for me to sit on the sofa to nurse the twins, only to hear Ellyson unpack the contents of the refrigerator. I can yell to her all I want, but I have to be seated and using both hands to nurse two babies ... so I can't jump up and stop her the way I could if I had just one baby. (I used to be able to nurse Ellyson using only one arm, while I walked around the house keeping up after Carter. I can't even stand up while nursing G&G simultaneously, let alone trying to put a hand on a toddler.

Or maybe I'm unloading the dishwasher, and Carter calls from the bathroom that he needs me to wipe him (sorry if that's TMI). I think "Ellyson doesn't even know where I am; she's preoccupied playing" so I drop what I'm doing, leaving the dishwasher open, and run to the bathroom. After wiping Carter, washing my hands and returning to the kitchen, I find Ellyson standing on the open dishwasher door, holding a ceramic coffee mug that she has unloaded from the top rack.

What's that? It takes just five minutes to vacuum the master bedroom? Surely that's a safe chore to check off the "to do" list. Except that Ellyson, in that time, has now dumped a box of stickers from the art desk, and is sticking them to the carpet.

Hmmm ... bath time for the babies. They have an ensuite bathroom, so let's close Ellyson in the nursery with us, to at least keep her contained. In the time it takes to wash Graham, she has dumped a pack of Huggies on the floor and has strewn three dozen alphabet blocks across the bedroom floor. And I still need to bathe Grant.

That's okay. Time to nurse the babies again. Maybe by now she has worn herself out. Back to the living room sofa, to nurse them. And she proceeds to empty the storage drawers next to the living room pack-and-play (which we use as a downstairs changing table). The best part? After dumping the drawer of freshly laundered and folded burp cloths onto the floor, she pulls a wet bag (containing three saturated cloth diapers) out of the pack-and-play, and stirs said pee-infused diapers into the pile of burp cloths. Because, you know, why not??

The best part? Four of those five scenarios played out this morning. The other happened the day prior (when she was gone half the day for MMO). But those aren't unusual stories. Having four examples from one day? That's pretty much par for the course.

Who, me??

Turk-E

The kids both celebrated Thanksgiving at school yesterday. For E, that meant they made a turkey headband. For Carter, that meant a Pilgrim headband and Thanksgiving program in the evening. (The one-year-old Mothers' Morning Out class does not participate. Even the two-year-olds are challenging to corral for a unified program!)

The school program started at the time we normally begin bed time for C&E, and ended at the time we normally begin getting G&G ready for bed ... so the kids were a little squirmy, shall we say? But there was no screaming. The babies each fussed briefly, but it was nothing a little cuddle time didn't solve.

All week, I heard there would be a pirate ship involved in the program. I asked Carter if he meant a pilgrim ship. No, he was adament it was a pirate ship.

 

Sleeping Babes

For two boys who seem to be polar opposites, maybe somewhere, deep down inside, they aren't so different after all.

Side note ... Ottoman tummy time has ended in this house. I took this picture on Monday. On Tuesday, Graham started rolling over more reliably (prior to then, he had done it just once), and even began using his feet and knees to scoot.

Wordless Wednesday

Baby Toes

Within the last week, the twins have outgrown their newborn toenails ... you know, the ones that are kind of triangle shaped? And have grown flat-edged toenails. Yes, this is a random statement. But I read a while back, a comment about how we get so hung up on when certain phases begin (smiling, babbling, crawling) that we don't even notice when other phases end (pronouncing "water" as "wah-lah-lah-lah" and so forth). So I'm marking the seemingly inocuous transition from newborn toes to baby toes.

Newborn toes

Baby toes

Also, Ellyson is limiting my access to the computer. I'll be in the middle of nursing the twins, and I'll hear a repeated "ding" coming from the computer: Ellyson is playing with it. So I've had to start closing the screen, then turning off and hiding the mouse. Not so conducive to writing a few sentences here and there throughout the day.

They Work Hard for the Money

I'm happy whenever I see Carter's toys in use as hand-me-downs!

Word of the Week: Cheese

... as in the food.

This child still calls her daddy "mama" (she learned to say "dada" but since learning "mama," has not called him by his real name). But she can say "more cheese" perfectly. :)

 

 

BTW - Ellyson was wearing the above outfit this morning in Hallmark when a lady made reference to her as the "big brother." Upon further inspection (much further inspection), she corrected herself. But seriously?! My son might play in the kitchen, and my daughter might play with action figures, but I do not dress my son in pink. Oh well. She was also the sixth (no lie) woman to tell me that I must "have [my] hands full" during my 10-minute trip into the store. Yes, six in 10 minutes. Might be a record. But bless the lady (probably 8-10 years my senior) in front of me at the checkout. Upon hearing the comment, she piped up with "I always say better full than empty!" and then winked and told me she has six children - one set of twins in the mix.

Blessings

When we ask the blessing before a meal these days (which generally happens at breakfast and dinner), even Ellyson has learned to fold her hands and bow her head. Carter didn't learn to do this until he was two. So I just eat it up when I see Ellyson doing this.

And then she eats it up, and I lose it.

If her food is within reach, she will fold her hands, bow her head, cock it to one side, then very carefully reach out with her folded hands, grab a piece of food and slide it into her mouth. All without pulling her hands apart. It's really quite a talent, I think. And it makes me laugh.

Ellyson Wants a Wordless Wednesday

The other week, Adele came on the radio. Ellyson started screaming in disapproval. But the next song was a racy hip-hop one. She bobbed her head and clapped her hands. I thought it was a sign that she didn't like Adele.

A couple days later, another song was on the radio. I started singing along. She screamed. I looked in the rearview mirror. She was shooshing me. So apparently it's my singing she doesn't like - not Adele's. Ehhh, our singing voices are easily confused. ;-)

 

 

Little Miss Talker

E is becoming quite the talker these days. And so animated! But what I'm really excited about, is that's she's enunciating more. "Baby" is now being pronounced with the "b" sound instead of the "d" sound ... stuff like that. In the last week alone, she's begun clarifying "baby" and saying "cat," "mouse," "bird" and "banana" (that one got added to the list today).

Carter has been helping. Such the good big brother ... driving in the van, I can hear in the back row, he is saying "Ellyson, say 'horse'." And she says something. He says "Good job, Ellyson! Ellyson, say 'truck'." And she says something. And so it goes. I just love seeing that interaction. About as much as I love seeing G&G babbling to one another. (Yes, that has begun. And it is just tooooo cute. Must try to catch it on video one day soon.)

But when she gets excited, it is funny to see her babble.

Falling back

I thought we weathered the time change pretty well. Anticipating trouble (especially with G&G, who would be wanting their noon feeding at 11 a.m. - smack in the middle of church service), we began the shift on Saturday morning ... gradually pushing the twins' feedings, naps and bed time later than normal. The big two went to bed later than normal, too. Sunday morning got off to a great start. It seemed everyone had weathered the shift perfectly.

Then Monday morning hit like a tidal wave. Carter was in our room, wide awake, at 5:30. It went downhill from there. Ellyson acted like she hadn't slept in days. Even after taking a short (45-minute) morning nap, she cried next to me on the sofa because I wasn't holding her. Grant and Graham are still handling it perfectly. Hoping everyone is in a better mood tomorrow!

Trick or Treat!

Continuing the tradition we started on Carter's second Halloween, we went trick-or-treating in my dad's neighborhood on Wednesday. He had his tractor all set up for a hay ride. So after a lap around part of his neighborhood, we set out with Spiderman, Minnie Mouse, Grant, Graham, my sister and her husband. (G&G were bundled, not costumed, for trick-or-treat.)

I ended up carrying E for most of it, since her little legs couldn't keep up with C (and she wouldn't let anyone else carry her). So Grant got some quality time with Aunt Alecia and Uncle Travis.

Our jack-o-lanterns, courtesy of Jack.

Losing it after Twins

Nope, not talking about losing my mind. Though one could make that argument. I'm talking about the belly. At my six-week checkup, I could still feel my uterus pushing out, above my belly button ... in the gap between my ab muscles. And I was starting to get frustrated with it. So I turned to a belly binder for help. After reading reviews of a few, I landed on this one.

And it did well. The first day, I had to lie on the floor just to get it hooked around me. After about five weeks, I was able to close it on the smaller of the two settings. I've worn in 8-15 hours per day, every day, for the last seven weeks. So if you've seen me in that time, you've seen me wearing it. Within a couple days, my uterus was no longer bulging out between the muscles, and after a few weeks, those muscles were starting to pull back together.

It isn't a miracle solution. My belly is still flabby, with a seersucker texture (also known as "twin belly"). But it does look a lot more like three-months-post-Ellyson, than what I was seeing two months ago. So for now, I've stopped using it. I kind of feel naked without it, but it's been two days since I put it on.

Nap Time

I am working on converting Ellyson to just one nap per day. But because of preschool pickup time for Carter, that's a 2:00 nap (except on the days when she goes to Mothers' Morning Out, when she gets to go to sleep at like 11:30). Anyway, she's having a hard time making it until after we pick up Carter. One day last week, she fell asleep on the kitchen floor during the twins' noontime feeding. She was out cold for a solid 20 minutes. Even Marley barking didn't rouse her.