Rose and the rice

A text I sent to my sister Em at 5pm today:

I just failed at motherhood. I accidentally dumped rice all over the floor and totally freaked out when Rose wouldn't stop walking in it and swimming in it. I tried putting her in time out but she kept coming out while I was trying to sweep up the rice and Amber was whining the whole time. I hate how hard everything is when I'm tired!

Everything was going fine today until the rice debacle. I was relatively cheerful in spite of my sluggish exhaustion. Of course I had to be tested a little extra and of course I failed the test. Why?? I know it's going to be hard in the afternoon and evening when I'm exhausted, but it's still hard even when I'm expecting it. Grrr. 

I don't like how my whole day is tainted by one single outburst. While I was trying to deal with the rice-Rose situation, I completely did not care about how I would feel afterwards. I totally felt like a hot blooded redhead with a temper flare-up, Anne Shirley style! I didn't break a slate over Rose's head or shout or anything (I'm not much of a shouter). But I was flaming hot on the inside! I asked Rose in an angry voice to leave the kitchen a few times and when she refused with a sneaky grin, I literally dragged her to the bathroom for time out. She kept running out of the bathroom with a grin on her face. It's like she found the how-to manual on the most effective way to suck Shaina dry of all patience and enrage me. I've known this about Rose since her babyhood, when she couldn't even crawl. She'd sit next to 2-year-old Jay with that sneaky grin on her face and do the exact thing that caused him to melt down--taking his toy, knocking down his blocks, etc. Why did I let her get to me today? She found my meltdown button and pushed it--no, punched it--repeatedly. I've been kicking myself for reacting ever since I finally cooled off.

Jeff had just gotten out of the shower right at the climax of the rice incident, when I was dashing down the hall and casting myself onto the bed in despair. He stepped in and handled the unruly Rose in his firm, patient way which always inspires two emotions in me: 1. THANK GOODNESS for husbands! and 2. Why am I failing so badly at patience when he can just handle this situation, all cool and collected? It's not even that big of a problem, so why can't I handle it? Why is it so easy for him when it's so impossible for me? I feel pathetic. It's not like I want my husband to have meltdowns or outbursts too, it just seems like I'm the only one who makes mistakes! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only flawed one in our relationship. He's not trying to make me feel bad (it's just my guilt); he's not even mad at me for melting down! Seriously his patience is all at once maddening and impressive! 

Jeff always nobly reminds me that for a sleep deprived person, I'm doing very well. Exhausted mommy-meltdowns are just part of the deal. BUT STILL. I hate them. I hate how I feel during and after them. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to CHOOSE to love and be patient or thrash and whine. I chose the latter this afternoon and it feels like poison in my chest. I'm still recovering from it. 

At dinner I said, "family, I'm sorry I freaked out today." Jeff said "I still love you," and Jay followed suit saying "it's ok, Mommy, I love you." A few minutes later, Rose said "I love you too, Mommy!" I need to forgive myself as fast as my sweet family does. 

We get The Week news magazine, and one of my favorite sections is called “It Wasn’t All Bad.” It’s usually at the bottom of a page detailing the world’s latest problems, and I find that small box outlining good deeds so refreshing. Here’s my day’s version of that section, since I prefer to end on a positive note:

It wasn’t all bad:
In the car today, Rose was dancing in her seat to some David Archuletta music. She said “Mommy, my braided pony tails are dancing! My hair is dancing with me!”

Amber suddenly learned how to pick toys up and bite them. That happened over night! When it was time to pick Jay up from school, Amber was in the middle of her newly established afternoon nap. I dreaded waking her up, but miraculously, she fell back asleep after each move: from crib to car seat and back to crib again. YES!

During family scripture time tonight, Jay rubbed his hand on my arm and leaned his soft freckled face against me.

The end of February

Some people are amazing at surviving on little sleep, but I am not one of them. On the eve of turning 4 months old, Amber usually only wakes me up once each night these days. On a bad night she wakes me up twice, but that has only happened once or twice a week in the past month. In the way of babies and sleep, I know I have it pretty good. BUT I’m still exhausted! My brain is fuzzy and if I sit still for too long, it likes to slip away into a semi-conscious daze.

So: Shaina’s sleep deprivation. Old news. Now onto the pictures! Believe it or not, I still have plenty of un-posted February pictures.

On a quiet Saturday afternoon, I taught the big kids how to carry Amber. It was hilarious, and harder for them than I thought it would be. Amber looks huge when Jay and Rose carry her! I guess Amber is nearly half of Rose’s weight.

Rose, teaching Amber about Queen Elsa and reading a story to her princesses.

Hanging out after school.

A trip to the post office. Kids will lay down anywhere! I remember doing the same thing when I was little—laying down on public floors.

How does she sleep like that??

  

In February I tried on my jeans for the first time in over a year and was surprised to find that they no longer fit. Apparently I still don’t have quite the muscle tone in certain lower body areas and it makes the jeans look ridiculous on me! I like loose clothing, but not saggy-baggy! I usually wear stretchy pants instead of jeans for comfort, but every now and then even I get a hankering for some good sturdy jeans. I dug out a pair of jeans that I got when I was a teenager and they fit much better, shockingly. Something about barfing hundreds of times and starving to death while growing another human seems to have cost me more than I thought. I need to go run some hills, ha ha.

This guy makes baby-wearing look good.

Saturday morning french toast with the cousins.

  

The kids all piled on their dad for family movie night. We watched The Wrath of Kahn in memory of Leonard Nimoy (aka Spock) passing away this week. He was a great Spock, but sorry—that movie is boring!! It did have a few exciting moments, but not too many. Jay and Jeff loved it, but Rose and I were antsy.

Ok, now on to the Amber portion of the pictures [she has her own folder in my monthly picture files].

You can’t really tell, but Amber barfed in the hollow of my collar bone and it pooled there like a bowl before spilling over and running down my shirt collar in a warm wet river. I can’t believe I paused long enough to take a picture of it, but it felt like there was a whole lot more barf accumulating in my collar bone puddle than there was.

Waking up squealy and happy. My favorite.

Hanging out.

Barfy faceplant! Amber seems to have started teething: gallons of drool and hours of hand-biting.

More happy mornings. I have had to retire that knitted blanket because Amber’s little fingers grab it and get tangled in it and she pulls it over her head when she flaps her arms. That’s all fine when she’s awake, but I don’t like blankets on faces of sleeping babies.

She’s growing, growing, growing! Almost four months old and I just had to unsnap her diapers to the biggest size. Mmmm her thighs are so tasty!

Quack.

I’m trying to embrace the blurry indoor moving baby pictures. Moving babies are blurry. It’s ok.

Flying!

That bare soft little body. Ahhh!

Wub-love.

I love holding my sleeping baby. She so soft and warm and fuzzy, like a little peach.

Sigh of contentment.

Little Miss Stubborn-Pants

Her name is Rose Meri White, but I try not to use her middle name when I’m annoyed at her because I like her middle name and I don’t want her to dislike it.

Yesterday, while Rose was eating a new flavor of creamy Greek yogurt, she said "this tastes elegant."

Also yesterday, when Rose was dressing up, she stuck a small light saber up the middle finger of a glove and waved it around, saying "look at me!"

I write these cute, funny moments down to balance out the HARD.

Seriously, one second I want to hug Rose till her eyes bulge and the next second I want to run away from her screaming. She is so stubborn! Her stubbornness is relatively constant; it's my fluctuating sleep levels that make some days harder than others. She keeps doing little things that bug me/aren't allowed and ignoring me when I ask her not to, like climbing over the back of the couch, touching food that I'm cooking, peeing in her undies because she stubbornly waited too long to make it to the potty, and putting public things in her mouth like the lid to the milk. None of these infractions is necessarily important or particularly dangerous, but when they all occur in rapid succession they max out my patience. I feel like such a hypocrite when I'm smiling at Amber while banishing Rose to time out! It’s all too easy to believe that Amber will never go to time out—she’s so sweet now! But alas, I remember thinking the same thing about baby Jay and baby Rose. Ha! Ha!

I don't like to turn the little things into battles of will, but I feel like once I've asked Rose to do (or not to do) something, if I don't follow up on my request I'm teaching her it’s ok to disobey/ignore me, or that I’m teaching her that what I say doesn't matter. Did that make sense? Rose has such a strong will of her own that 9 times out of 10 she refuses to do anything asked of her until:

1. she's done with what she's already doing (even if it's forbidden), or…
2. she delays long enough until she can do the thing on her own schedule and claim that it was her idea.

These two situations only happen when Rose decides to do the thing at all. Too often she decides not to do it at all, forcing me to turn what began as a small normal request into a power struggle. Argh! It's so hard to handle, especially on low sleep. Lots of times I find myself at a complete loss as to how on earth to handle her stubbornness. I feel like a bad mom when I allow myself to get frustrated with her behavior. But it happens a-plenty! The times that I don't cave in to frustration I still feel like I'm blundering around blindly looking for a solution.

What I want: Rose to listen right away whenever I ask her to do/not do something. I try not to make a direct request unless I really mean it--I don't want her to be overwhelmed with demands and feel controlled. There are levels of necessity when it comes to a child heeding a parent: danger/safety is the top tier of importance, and the others are secondary to it: following rules, helping out, avoiding unnecessary messes, manners, and being considerate. The list goes on, but those are my main concerns right now. 

If I could depend on Rose to listen every time there was a safety issue, I wouldn't be as concerned/lost as I am, but she is not a reliable listener at all, regardless if the situation. She's just as likely to scamper off alone across a busy parking lot as she is to cling dutifully to my hand while we walk across said parking lot. I use different tones of voice for each type of situation too, so she should know what's going on, more or less.

It's confusing because Rose is a well-behaved girl in general. She's not a terror! She's sweet and kind and not obnoxious to others. She doesn't even go off on her own and get into forbidden things at home (no ominous silences around here). But she has this headstrong streak that flares up all too often, leaving me bewildered and worried that I'm doing something wrong. I suppose I should be grateful that this is my main parenting challenge right now, but it's stressful because I feel like I'm failing and letting Rose think it's ok to ignore authority. How much of her stubbornness is an age thing that she'll grow out of and how much of it is a personality trait that she'll keep forever? It terrifies me to have a willful, disobedient teenager! How much SHOULD I expect from a just-turned-four-year-old? I feel that high expectations are better than low ones, but I don't want to get frustrated or worried that my expectations aren't being met if they are too high for her age! At least Jay is sweet and strong and a good example for Rose. She adores him. At least she has that.

It's fascinating to see how each child comes to earth with his/her own personality. Some personalities are stronger than others. As parents, I guess all we can do is pray and teach our kids good principles as best we can. At the end of the day it all comes back to agency. I have agency, and so do my kids. They can choose to follow what their parents teach them or not. For now when my kids are younger, I have a little more control over their choices than I will in the future. I guess that's comforting? I must confess to already missing the days when Jay and Rose were smaller and I made most of their decisions for them. It was so much easier! I am totally a baby-mama more than a big kids mama. Amber is a breeze to take care of! It's hard to figure out where to draw the line with agency and rules in a family with kids at different ages. I don't have a good formula--I doubt one exists. I just hope I end up doing what's best for my kids in the long run.

I wish I could be writing about overcoming and triumphing over this stubborn struggle, but I'm not. I'm barely surviving over here, riding the waves of willfulness one by one. Every now and then I get seasick on them! Right when I think we’ve made progress, there’s a relapse. I suppose things are better now than they were six months ago, but boy the improvement seems miniscule. I don't think there is one answer or one fix for little miss stubborn-pants. My current plan of attack is to make sure Rose feels loved so that any willful behavior does not come from a need for attention. We are very serious when safety is an issue. That’s our method. As long as she knows that her parents love her no matter what and that we care about her safety, we'll keep rolling with those stubborn punches and do our best to raise Rose right. 

After all, she's only four years old. Patience and perseverance must be my mantra.  

GOLDEN

The past week has been golden in so many ways: sunshine and 55 degrees, moments of pure joy, nights of sleepless agony, beautiful inspiration, mountains of laundry, hundreds of pictures, RUNNING, sore muscles, giant block buildings and messes, trampoline, cookies, meltdowns, foot rubs, baby snuggles, and acute exhaustion. Why on earth did I include difficulties in the golden list? Opposition in all things, my friends. The hard happenings turn the plain good stuff into pure GOLD. I don't know much but I know enough to take the bad with the good, as tough as it can be to squeak through the tricky parts. When the good comes, I find myself completely relishing it. If I was a dog, I'd ROLL in the golden goodness of those moments. And then I'd fall asleep! Ha ha. I have some vignettes from the past few days to entertain you and show you a slice of our life:

[Sisters on Sunday]

Saturday and Sunday night, Amber slept in minuscule increments of time, translating somewhere in the neighborhood of 2+1+2 hours of sleep for me. It was SO HARD. Thank goodness for afternoon church and President's Day. Jeff took care of Jay and Rose both mornings and I went back to bed for almost two dead-to-the-world hours. The result of those two exhausting nights was me breaking my unspoken self-imposed rule: I got online and researched baby sleep how-to's. Talk about stressful! In my harried, sleep-deprived state, I was convinced that it was all my fault and I had to start imposing more of a schedule on my little 3 month old, etc. etc. etc. Monday I timed her naps and put her in her bed every time she got tired and blah blah blah, it was an impossible day. By the end of it I missed my normal easy-going baby non-schedule! Now we're back to the baby-led sleep-when-she-wants plan, and I've sworn off those blasted get your baby to sleep methods. And I'm ok with it! We'll re-visit sleep concerns in a few months when Amber is older. I merely had to accept the fact that I may be a zombie for a few more months. Once I did that, I was content once more. WHEW. Stupid sleep deprived anxiety!! I CAN do this MY WAY, and my way is to let my baby do her thing. WHEW! 

Last night Rose woke up scared and was awake for about half an hour. Today she had meltdown after meltdown and was just exhausted all day. Seeing how her performance was so negatively affected by a mere half hour of lost sleep in the middle of the night made me feel pretty good about how I'm handling my own choppy sleep segments. Not exactly 100% graceful, but I have far fewer meltdowns than Rose!

In spite of my nightmarishly low sleep, I have been steadily improving my running already! Ahh, it feels amazing to be out there in the sunshine cruising along the street shoulders, drinking in the fresh air and rolling scenery. My average mile time has already dropped by more than 30 seconds in the week since I started running. Muscle memory is an astounding thing. My lungs are adapting much faster than I expected, and the gaspy tightness is taking longer and longer to set in with each run. I'm sore and tired, but it hurts so good. I got my first new pair of running shoes in four years this week, and they are a dream. It's like running on pillows! It hurt to run on gravel in my old worn out shoes--they were that thin. It almost feels like cheating when I wear my new shoes. 

The weather has been a dreamy mid-50's, low 60's for the past week or more and it is buoying all of our moods way up. The trampoline was arguably the best purchase we've ever made. In the six days it's been up, I'm already wondering why we didn't get one sooner. Jay and Rose fall asleep so fast at bedtime, having used up the last of their energy on the tramp. Yesterday afternoon, Rose and I brought the baby swing out onto the back porch, clipped Amber into it, and went out to the trampoline together. The sun was flooding the yard with warm golden light and we basked and bounced in it. I'm telling you, that vitamin D went straight to my soul! I love having such a simple FUN way to play with my kids. It's always harder for my adult self to get down on the floor and play with toys. I can build with blocks and read stories, but the actual playing that the kids always ask for is not easy. On the trampoline, however, Rose and I were both giggling and twirling and having the greatest time together. It was golden.

On Monday, Jay and Rose jumped on the trampoline practically all day. The kids next door jumped on the trampoline with them most of the afternoon, except when they were all chasing each other through the back door down to the basement and out the front door and then over to the neighbor's house, round and round repeatedly. They paused for 5 or 10 minutes to play a Wii game and then next thing I knew they were all traipsing back through the house to the tramp and then next door and then asking for a snack and then starting the circuit all over again. Let's just say that chaos reigned and too many leaves got crunched into the carpet. It was awesome, stressful, fun, and exhausting all at once.

I have been drowning in laundry all week. Monday I did four loads of laundry and folded one. Tuesday I did two more loads of laundry and folded none. Today I did one more load of laundry and finally folded all 6 loads that were piling up in my bedroom. It was such a triumphant feeling to finally get more than the tip of my nose out of the sea of crumpled laundry! There are probably already at least three more loads that need to be washed, but for a few minutes this afternoon, I was queen and the laundry was done. 

A few days ago I made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, scooped it all into balls, and refrigerated them. So any time we wanted fresh cookies, we simply pulled out a few of the dough balls and popped them into the toaster oven. Jeff and I have been indulging in pazookies after the kids are in bed: a hot squishy cookie with a scoop of ice cream on top=heavenly. We eat that tastyness while watching an episode of White Collar (I introduced it to Jeff, and he's a fan). Then Jeff nearly always gives me a foot rub, amazing man that he is. Pazookie, a funny show, AND a foot rub? Yessss. Oh and there's a sweet little baby to hug during all of that goodness. It's all about the little things. A collection of little pleasures equals a big joy! 

I guess by that rule a collection of inconveniences equals a big annoyance too...yep, that's true. When I'm tired I drop things. Not babies, but things, like spoons and flour and toys and clothes, etc. It's a challenge to stave off the annoyance that compounds with each dropped item. Hello! I was trying to focus on the positive. Focusing on the positive while being real and honest is an interesting line to walk, I must say. 

[Jay and Rose were both sitting with Amber feeling her soft head with their cheeks—this is not posed]

For my patchy, abbreviated, bleary-eyed scripture study I have decided to read one chapter or conference talk over and over until it finally sinks past my thick tiredness into my mind and heart and actually means something to me. I've been reading the same chapter for over a week, ha ha. I picked one of my favorite scripture mastery verses and then read the chapter it's in over and over. The chapter of the moment (or week...or month maybe) is Alma 37. A true classic, with so many simple, beautiful truths in it. After I had read it multiple times, I started checking out the good-looking footnotes. One footnote lead me to a scripture that I was familiar with, but really worked for me this time around: D&C 64:33: "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." It only took one read-through for that one to zoom past my puffy-slow tired-head, straight to my heart. It is such a normal, commonly-quoted scripture, but it just fits my everything right now. The best part to me was "be not weary in well-doing." Boom. Yes, I'm tired. Yes, staying on top of the housework feels like climbing up the down escalator. Yes, everyone needs me to do something RIGHT NOW. I'm allowed to be tired, but I don't want to be tired of doing good! I can be tired while well-doing all I want, as long as I'm not tired OF well-doing. YES. This pithy direct verse helped me make that distinction and remember that the small things are the great things. 

Here's a small thing that is GREAT: Jay read his first Dr. Seuss book yesterday! It was Green Eggs and Ham. He needed help on a few words, but not many! He can read! How did that happen? I must admit to a smidgen of parental pride. It's so fun to see him learn and do new hard things. He was student of the month for his classroom back in December, and they gave him his award a few weeks ago. Jay.

Jeff builds such amazing creations out of "the smooth blocks." Jay and Rose have “sleepovers” on the floor of their room. It’s only a sleepover if they sleep next to each other on the floor. When they sleep in their beds (in the same room) it’s not a sleepover.

I found the game Jenga at the thrift store for $2. Also 4 VHS tapes for a dollar and a snazzy purse. The purse looked so nice and high-quality that I had to search out the brand online when I got home, just to see if my eyes were right. They were. The purse cost $50 brand new, and I paid $7 for it! Woot. I love my used new purse! Oh, and I found one of those thick fleece cold weather suits with ears on the hood for Amber (it’s huge on her but warm). My little heart marshmallow baby-love. I like Goodwill more and more every time I go. Give me Goodwill, Costco, and Amazon and I'm SET.

Today after the Goodwill excitement, Rose, Amber, and I went to visit Jeff at the high school during his planning period. Daddy-daughter visit! The faces of every high school girl we passed on the way to Jeff's classroom softened when they saw Amber. It was cute. The boys didn't even notice us, but the girls went all melty and shiny-eyed at the sight of our sweet little fuzz-top and her big sister. 

It's 10:45pm and Amber has been asleep since 8pm. Motherly dilemma: do I wake her up and top her off in hopes that she'll sleep longer or do I just go to bed and risk her waking me up twice (or more) in the night? Last night I woke her up before I went to bed, and she still woke me up halfway through the night. Maybe tonight I should see how long she sleeps...?