( The background of Lena's crazy aunt )

Tags: lenauryn

I'm making coffee this morning and the milk is almost done steaming when Jack comes out of his room. I say good morning to him, then I run to the kitchen. The milk will spray everywhere if it steams too long. I say, "Hang on, I have to stop the coffee machine before it explodes."

Jack follows me to the kitchen, and he's standing around when suddenly he goes, "Oh!" and looks at his foot. Then he grabs his diaper and says, "Mommy, my diaper is not floating!"

"What?"

"Like the coffee machine!"

". . . oh. Exploding?"

"Yeah!"

Tags: cute things, jack

I haven't posted here in forever! I've been distracted by facebook and new blogs.

Evan had her tonsils & adenoids out yesterday. She was incredibly brave during the whole thing and I am so proud of her. She was not afraid of the doctors or the hospital, did everything she was asked, and smiled and talked to the doctors and nurses.

They gave her a sedative before wheeling her into the OR (where she got gas anesthetic) and she was really loopy. It is frigging weird to see your 4 year old stoned out of her mind. Her eyes were glazed and she had a vacant smile and she kept saying things that made no sense, like, "Mommy, your face is above your face" and then giggling. Weird.

After the surgery she woke up totally disoriented, of course, and nauseated from the gas, but she was still really brave. Other kids in the recovery room were crying or screaming. She just snuggled me and said, "Mommy, I'm scared." Fortunately I had warned her that her brain would feel funny when she woke up and it wouldn't last for very long, so she was prepared.

When I got her home, she slept for a couple hours, then woke up very cheerful. She's eaten tons of ice cream. TOday she's a little droopy but apparently not in too much pain. She was a little alarmed when her nose started bleeding, but it stopped quickly.

The ENT said her tonsils and adenoids were really huge, and he has no doubt they've been severely affecting her sleep. So she should start sleeping better now and we hope that that will get rid of the really serious mood swings and out-of-control behavior. She's obviously not going to be wonderful all the time, because she's still a 4-year-old girl, but I think it will really smooth out the extremes.

Current Mood: relieved

I am so, so tired. All day long for the past few weeks I've been going from one task to another with pretty much no break in between. Most of it is stuff I enjoy, but by the end of the day I'm really wiped. And I have a ton of ranch budget stuff to do before morning. It's probably not going to all get done. Oh well.

Also, I got on the scale the other day and the number was above 200. I just keep getting fatter, so I went back to Weight Watchers. I'm just going to follow the stupid program and not complain or try to cheat.

Also, wikkywikky, I think I'm going to be in Portland May 4-7!!!! Can I stay with you?

Okay, here's how it started today.

My parents and I took the kids to Hakone Gardens, which is a Japanese garden in Saratoga. We had a big breakfast and then got to the garden around 10:30.

The kids had a good time at the garden. We didn't stay too long--it's pretty small, and I didn't want to tire out the kids.

While the kids were looking at plants with my parents, I went into the gift shop to get some new chopsticks (they sell the prettiest ones there) and a buddha statue for the garden. They had little keychains made from stuffed animals in kimonos that were only a couple dollars, so I got two for the kids.

When I got outside, Evan and my dad were there. I let Evan choose whether she wanted the cat or the bunny. She chose the cat.

Five minutes later, we're all getting back into the car and she decides she wants the bunny. I tell her (gently and reasonably) that she had her chance to choose, and she chose the cat, so now the bunny belongs to Jack. She responds to this by grabbing the rabbit out of Jack's hand, which causes Jack to start screaming. I take the rabbit and the cat away from Evan, take them to Jack, and ask him which one he wants and which one is for Evan. He confirms that he wants the bunny.

This sent Evan into a hysterical rage that pretty much lasted through the next hour, until we got home and I put her in her room and she screamed "I hate you!" until she fell asleep.

I actually didn't lose my temper until towards the end, when she was really kicking and screaming and being rude. So I wasn't escalating the problem this time. She seemed to get madder the calmer I was. She clearly wanted me to react.

I wish I knew what to do. Sometimes I think that the problem is I'm not consistent enough with rules and consequences for her behavior. But other times I think I'm too strict and I'm asking too much of her.

Current Mood: depressed

This is my philosophy: There are two (material) things with which you cannot possibly spoil a child, and they are books and art supplies.

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It's mid-March and I am totally failing in my resolution to read at least ten new novels this year. I've read two--Scarlett and The Gunslinger. I'm partway through the audiobook of The Drawing of the Three (that counts as reading--Stephen King himself told me so) but I haven't had an opportunity lately. I joined a bookclub and I can tell already they're going to keep picking books that don't interest me, but then, I guess I don't really need peer pressure to read books that DO interest me.

Nevertheless, I'm thinking of picking up a GRRM novel for the third or fourth read-through.

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I'm working full-time on ranch stuff now, though I only need to be on the ranch a couple days a week. Still, it's exhausting. I had to hire a second babysitter, since Monica is still in school full-time.

Current Mood: sleepy

Evan's behavior is getting a little out of control again. She really, really pushes me. Whatever she knows I want her to do, she will do the opposite.

Example
Today at quiet time, I was in the middle of reading to her when she said she wanted some food. She'd already had lunch and a snack in the past two hours, and maybe she was hungry, but I'm trying to get her on a normal eating schedule. So I said she could have a snack when quiet time was over, and she started whining and crying. I put away the book and said I was done reading. She handed me a different book, and I said (calmly), "No, I'm not reading any more."

She said, "Yes you are!"

I told her that she's not in charge, and it's rude to boss people around, (especially grown ups and especially her mother).

She started toward the door and I said, "Evan, don't leave the room." She made a face at me and said, "I'm going to unless you stop talking!"

I stopped talking and just looked at her. After a minute she said, "Well, I'm leaving anyway even if you stop talking!"

I started to get out of the chair to go collect her, and she ran over to the bed. She picked up one of her dolls, threw it on the floor, looked at me and said, "Go get it!"

At that point I kind of lost my temper.


Seriously, is this normal? My parents think I should take her to some kind of counselor. I don't know. I know four-year-olds are supposed to push boundaries.

So this afternoon I'm making a project for us to do together, which is codifying the house rules. I'm going to print them out and we can cut them out and glue them onto a poster and decorate it together. I figure this way she at least feels like she's part of the rule-making process. And having the rules posted in a place where we can both see them, even though she can't read them yet, will help remind us both of where the limits are. It's basically a prop to help me be more consistent.

( Evan's rules )

Current Mood: frustrated

Jack says so many funny things that I forget to write most of them down, but this one is a classic.

I was driving around Whistler with him in the car, and there was a guy coming the other way who was going really slow when I wanted to turn left, and he was on his cell phone, so I said (to myself) "Hang up and drive, jackass!"

Two minutes later there were a couple snowboarders walking in the road, and I said (to myself), "Get out of my way, please, snowboarders."

Jack, behind me, says: "Yeah. Leave it, drive, jackass!"

And from that point on, whenever he saw a snowboarder in the road, he'd start shouting "Jackass! Jackass!" And when we got him out of the car, he'd shout "Hi, jackass! Hi, jackass!"

Craig and I about died laughing.

Tags: funny things, jack, jackass
Current Mood: amused

No snowboarding for me today. I still can barely bend over and I'd just spend the whole lesson terrified that I'd fall over and land on my tailbone again. Bleh. I'll just have to wait till next year to learn to snowboard. Evan is having so much fun in her ski lessons that we might take a trip or two up to Tahoe in advance of next year's ski week, so she can get in some practice.

The weather's beautiful here. I'd forgotten how much I love the mountains.

Current Mood: cold

We're in Whistler this week. I had my first snowboarding lesson yesterday, and also my first snowboarding accident. There's no doubt that everyone in the training area was falling on their asses a lot, but I managed a really spectacular crash--I was going too fast, lost my balance, landed on my ass and then bounced up and flipped around. I'm probably lucky I didn't break a leg or an ankle since my legs were kind of moving at a different speed than my torso. As it was, I just have a severely bruised coccyx. It happened before lunch, and it hurt a lot but I managed one more run. Then during lunch it stiffened up so much that it was hard to walk or bend over. I tried to do one more run, but my instructor wouldn't let me. I had to move today's lesson to Thursday in the hopes that I will be healed by then.

Yesterday afternoon it hurt so much I was worried that I might have actually slipped a disk or done some other kind of non-temporary damage to my spine, but after a lot of ibuprofen it started to feel better, and today I'm just sore.

Evan LOVES her ski lessons. As Sylvia pointed out, Evan really is an outdoorsgirl. Tomorrow she has a day off lessons and if it isn't snowing/raining, we're going to go innertubing. Jack's been hanging out with some local nannies from an on-call agency (really nice 20-something British skisbums--although I think they ride and I don't know what you call a snowboard bum except maybe just "snowboarder").

I want to come back next year, when Jack can take lessons too, but I am clearly going to have to get myself some real boarding clothes. My ski pants are a hand-me-down and my jacket is a gift from Kristen, and I look way too conservative to be riding. You have to dress like you're either going into guerilla warfare, or to a rave.

I'm almost out of power so I better post before it's too late.

Current Mood: sore