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…