Update

 In case anyone has been wondering what we have been up to: the little dude turned 4 about a month ago! He had a wonderful birthday surrounded by family and friends. As he put it, "all my people were there!" Easter also went well though it went rather quietly for us this year. Still gathering with family of course. However recently my husband has been having a lot of health issues that have kind of taken center stage for our family. He will be fine with time, just a work in progress to get him healthy and taking care of himself. 

Seth has started his work on the ABCs. He has learned the song (mostly) and we have started learning to recognize and write the uppercase letters. I highly recommend hitting up the book aisle at your local Dollar Tree. They have workbooks for littles up to about fourth grade that focus on all kinds of subjects. For Seth's age they have letters, numbers, shapes, colors, same and different, and first words. They are good for introducing subjects or just for busy books. Seth has loved it so far. We have gotten as far as the letter 'L' on his first letter book doing a few letters a day. 

The summer is going to be busy with hands on learning as Seth will be planting a garden with his grandmother, learning to ride a bike and learning to fish. All great life skills to have under his belt. 

Night versus Day

The time is midnight...the toddler is awake. Why, you may ask? Good freaking question. We have had trouble with his sleeping for some time now. He has nightmares and just doesn't sleep well period. We went to his doctor and started with melatonin. Of course we started with a small dose and worked up from there. He now is at the max dose for his age, along with another medication that helps for the impulse control and also helps with sleep. Problem solved right? 

Nope! Now he goes to bed at his appropriate bed time without a fight but sometime between midnight and two he will wake up and ask for the remote. Being mindful of the fact that the tv will not help him sleep we always start by saying no and trying to direct him back to sleep. More often than not he will work himself to a tantrum and our neighbors do not appreciate a screeching banshee at midnight. I fear we may have worked ourselves into a corner with this one. 

I am now the sleep deprived parent desperately clutching the coffee and praying to stay awake all day.

Parenting fail #3006 

Who’s in Charge?

The daily struggle of choosing which battles to fight and what to ignore has become a war that I think the adults are losing. My little has been diagnosed with an unspecified impulse control disorder (mostly because he was too young for an ADHD diagnosis) and it presents some interesting difficulties. The tantrums and meltdowns typical of three year olds are taken a step further for us. It is common at our house to have broken toys, high pitched shrieking, objects flying, and bruises and bite marks on the adults. At times we have to give in for our own mental health because the fight is too much. We are not perfect parents - no one is - but we try our hardest. 

He is getting ready to be re-evaluated to get that ADHD diagnosis on board so we can get supports in place to give him his best life. In the meantime homeschool is getting ready to be in session! He would typically start preschool in the fall based on his age, but he is showing that he is ready to go so we will be starting soon. As we get going I will be sharing examples of projects that we do and a basic plan that I am following. 

Stay tuned…

Heartache

 Today my three year old told me he didn’t love me anymore. He wasn’t angry. He just said it matter of factly for no reason and walked away. Intellectually I understand that he doesn’t really mean it, but ai still broke down and cried anyway. Then he laughed when I told him he hurt my heart. It took my partner a half hour to convince him that I was really hurt and for him to come hug me and say sorry. I have never felt like a bigger failure in my life as I did at that moment. 

Advice for Life

 I’ve been spending a great deal of time lately thinking about how I am going to raise my child in the world as it is now. The world today is not the world I was raised in or raised for. In many ways the world is better with technological advancements and improvements in science and medicine. However in other ways the world seems to have stalled somewhere around the 1950s. The division, racism, bigotry and hatred found around me today are absolutely astounding. 

My upbringing was different from what most people experience. I grew up in a small town with little to no ethnic diversity, but I grew up in the two hotels owned by my family. Also, without my knowing at the time, my father was raising me with aspirations toward me going into politics. Little did he know I would turn out to be the opposite of a politician. Several lessons stuck with me over the years. 

First he taught me to know that the differences I saw in the people around me were nothing to be feared or made fun of but were to be learned from. I was encouraged to make friends who were considered different and to learn everything I could from them. As a result I learned how to connect with people in different ways and even more importantly to accept different cultures with a lack of judgement. 

He also taught me that everyone had something to teach me and as such were deserving of respect. Regardless of how I might have seen my level of intelligence compared to theirs, they most likely had some kind of knowledge that I lacked. Through this I learned to understand the different kinds of intelligence (books versus practical versus people) and to learn everything I could from every person in my life. 

The third lesson was diplomacy. This lesson was the hardest for me to learn as I believed at a young age that you should always speak the absolute truth. Unfortunately that left me being very blunt and often accidentally rude. Tact seemed like a kind lie and and that never came easy for me, but I was a natural peacemaker. I also had natural leadership skills and the gift of being able to speak with anyone on any level. 

The question becomes: are these the three most important things to pass along to my son? After much thought I think I have determined the three lessons that I feel are most important. 

1) Do the right thing even when it isn’t the popular choice  

2) Speak the truth even when it’s hard  

3) Be kind always. 

I believe that in the current world if I can give my son these values, everything else will fall into place for him. These are the things that I think make someone a good person, and these are the things I aspire to myself . 

Nostalgia and Racism

 I had a holy shit moment tonight that I feel the need to share. Keeping in mind that I am not religious but it has a part in this story because it is relevent. 

The show 7th Heaven is a show I used to watch when I was younger and hadn’t seen in a long time but it’s on Hulu so we started watching it tonight. The first season aired in 1996 - 25 years ago. The episode was about a neighboring church that was burned to the ground by arsonists because it was a black church and the pastor’s family was threatened. The kids of course all come together and learn from each other and then teach their parents a lesson or two as every episode goes. Two things really stuck with me. The prayer that ended the show was, “Please, God, stop the fires.” See...super relevent to current events. The second hit even closer to home. A boy was rude to Simon for being friends with the black boy and used the N word. Simon’s response was to hit him, which got him suspended. His parents then discussed that they were a little proud but still had to punish him for fighting. I thought about it for a minute and realized that I would not punish Seth in that situation. I would definitely discuss better choices but I would tell him that I was proud he was standing up for his friend, standing up to a bully, and for standing up for what is right. 

I hope very much to raise a son who always stands up for what is right and defends others. And I am deeply sorry that 25 years later he will still be facing the same exact attitudes as the ones in that episode.

Mother's Day Gifts!

Last year for Mother's Day, for his grandmother's, I attempted to do a flower pot craft with Seth that was very difficult and did not come out the way I wanted. However, I was able to learn from my mistakes to try and do better this year. This year I am doing another flower pot activity but with clay pots instead of plastic so they will hold the paint better. I painted Seth's hands and had him put one hand at the time around the side of the pot in order to create an image of him cupping it in his hands.

After his hand prints dried I added the words and on the bottom of the pot I used a black Sharpie to write his name and the date. Then I blasted the whole outside of the pot with a finishing spray/sealer to keep it from chipping off.
Meanwhile I also have been working on growing some forget me nots to have in the pots when they are gifted. I am not the best with growing plants, but these are pretty simple flowers so hopefully they will be okay and pretty by Mother's Day since they have time to grow and I will transplant a small amount into each pot. If I can't make the flowers work for me, I will give both his grandmother's the ingredients to try and grow the flowers themselves. :) Along with the flower and the pot they will receive a card with this inscription:

This year for Mother’s Day, I give a gift with two sides.
A flower that will grow with nourishment and care, just as I will grow over the years.
And my hands frozen small in time for you to hold and remember me as I am now.
Through every age and size I will still love you, Happy Mother’s Day!

(PS: I don’t have any pictures of Seth working on this because he did not enjoy it so my hands were busy guiding his. He is still very stubborn when it comes to crafting.)