The Dreaded Terrible Two's

I really don't know if Lynden has started the Terrible Two's or if it's jealousy of Alyssa and the attention she gets, but man oh man is he been a handful lately.  From eating breakfast in the morning, playing, eating lunch, an attempt at naptime, biting, hitting, throwing, the fight at dinner time, getting him to stay in bed, and the ATTITUDE, oh the attitude.

Most parents I know seem to start their Terrible Two experience around 18 months, which seems to be when they start to determine their odd preferences to things.  A friend of mine messaged me last night to tell me about her son, who is 18 months, freaking out when food doesn't make it into his mouth fully - if anything is touching his lips he screams until she pushes it into her son's mouth or else he'll spit the food out.  Lynden used to get upset about any food touching his hands. 

As most parents can tell anyone the "NO" stage is the start of it all.  Then comes the "MINE" stage and somewhere the attitude kicks in.  Lynden loves "no", but only when he says it.  If we say "no" it's not uncommon for full on tears (must learn to cry on command so I can burst into tears when he says it).  And his "no" is a mean one accompanied by the frown and the occasional finger pointing.  I've even tried to stop telling him "no" in hopes he'll stop but no such luck yet.  However, the no isn't as bad as the sassing and talking back - my son is quite rude at times.  We just remind him, constantly, that he's not allowed to talk to us like that,to which he usually says "NO" which leads to time outs after enough warnings.  I would love to know how much time a child spends in timeout from ages 2-5.

Some days it feels like I'm dealing with multiple personalities.  Lynden will ask for cereal for breakfast only to refuse it once it's served to him.  Or he'll ask to play doh only to get mad when it's all set up because he doesn't want to play with it.  Or he begs me to go and play with his cousins next door only to get there, take off his boots and break into hysterics because he wants to go home.  Or wants to watch Yo Gabba Gabba only to turn the TV off the moment it starts.  WHY?!?!?

But I do have to chalk some of it up to jealousy towards his sister.  She does take up a lot of attention that used to be his, but I try to involve him as much as I can.  I try to read to him while I'm nursing and get him to help when I'm changing or bathing her and that seems to help sometimes.  But 7/10 times he's got to go potty 30 seconds after I've started nursing (he knows he gets priority and I'll unlatch her to get him on the potty, although I don't always stay now that he's learned how to get off the potty himself).  I know he loves her and he is so affectionate to her - he loves to hug and cuddle her, he hangs her toys back on her play mat when she pulls them off, and tells her "it's ok" when she's crying - but it doesn't stop him from walking up to her and biting her big toe or forehead or pushing her chair over while she's in it.  Thankfully he hasn't hurt her more than the biting and he was more upset by the trouble he got in but he knows it's attention and any attention, good or bad, is attention. 

Danny has been great with him when he's home and I'm busy, with Alyssa, dinner, laundry, etc.  I don't know how people manage as a single parent with 2 kids. As it is during the day I can manage... most of the time, but I try to pre-plan my day so that I can schedule them on slightly different times (I'm not nursing Alyssa at noon when I make Lynden's lunch, try to plan nap time for around the same time) which helps eliminate the problem of them both desperately needing me at the same time.  Most days I'm successful at it, but my saving grace is knowing that by 4 (most days) Danny's home and I have 4 hours of help before bedtime.  For some reason those 4 hours are the hardest of the day, mainly because of the one dreaded meal of the day... Dinner!

What makes dinner so much different from the rest of the meals in the day?  Lynden eats breakfast just fine, small snack in the late morning, 8/10 times eats lunch well, small snack in the mid afternoon and then chaos at dinner only to ask me for snacks between dinner and bedtime.  I've now taken to not fighting it and just ask him "do you need to think about it?" to which he generally answers yes, so we let him down from the table and he goes and sits in his room until he's ready to eat without a fight - that's the theory anyways and everything works in theory.  He usually comes back within 5 minutes, eats 3 or 4 good bites and then says "all done" to which we respond with airplanes, cars, trucks, choo choos, motor boats that all go into the tunnel and when those don't work we resort to plain & simple bribery.  I think he's doing it just for the bribery now which is why I try to limit it as much as possible and will counter with "fine, but when you're hungry later you're getting supper".  How I dread dinners with an almost 3 year old.

And then my favourite time of the day - Bedtime!  2 hours of semi-quiet time at the end of my day.  I am so grateful that Lynden has gone back to staying in bed and sleeping instead of getting up every 15 seconds.  One night I stood outside his room for 50 minutes (not kidding) and walked him back to bed every 15 seconds before I gave up and Danny took over.  And now that Alyssa is getting her bedtime routine figured out she goes down around 8 as well, although she usually wakes up about an hour later for a rock or quick feed and then she's out again.  But I can live with that over the alternative.

I'm sure in 10 years I'll be able to look back and see the humour in all this, assuming I'll be able to remember any of it, but for the moment it's a lot of deep breaths, warnings, time outs, and tears followed by hugs and cuddles when it's over.

Just think he'll be over the worst of it just in time for Round 2!

A Mother's Bond

When I was pregnant with Lynden there was so much that I enjoyed and looked forward to.  I loved feeling him move and squirm inside my ever expanding belly (he wasn't much of a kicker) and my heart melted every appointment I got to hear his rapid heartbeat.  Labour wasn't something I was dreading, not that I was looking forward to it but I wasn't worried about it, and the epidural really helped cemented my not worrying about it.  I had this idea of what was going to happen right after he was born - I was going to hold him skin to skin and allow him to lead what was going to happen, be it snuggles or breastfeeding, whatever his instincts told him to do and fall so madly in love with him.  It did not go that way, not at all.

Lynden was born after 4.5 hrs of active labour (my water had broken 36 hours before but nothing was happening so they had to kick start the contractions) and 15 minutes of pushing.  He came out as this beautiful, clean, purple baby... yes, purple!  The cord had been wrapped around his neck, so the doctor cut the cord, plopped him on me and when he didn't cry right away they swooshed him off to the warming table to get him to cry, which they did in no time.  There went my wonderful idea of holding him and bonding with him.  Oh well, I'll look at him from a distance and fall in love with him from the delivery bed... it did not go that way either. 

My wonderful boyfriend (now husband), who had been spectacular from the moment I said "my water broke", fell so madly in love with our beautiful son that he (kinda totally) forgot I was in the room and just started at Lynden...awwww... directly in front of me.  Every few seconds I'd say "I can't see him" or "move" or push him to the side so I could see, only to have him step out of the way so I could catch a glimpse of him and then step back into my line of sight.

The doctor then told me she was going to deliver the after birth so I decided to stop trying to get Danny to move and focus on the new task at hand.  By then Lynden had been weighed, measured, cleaned up, swaddled and handed to Danny.  I then got to hold my son - about 25 minutes after he was born. 

Very few people know this, but it affected me, not being to hold Lynden for so long when I had this "idea" of what was going to happen (and I know there are woman out there that go longer not being able to hold their child and I cannot imagine what that is like).  I finally confessed to Danny at Thanksgiving, about 2 weeks after Lynden's birth, that I felt I was missing "that" bond with him.  I loved Lynden, I didn't doubt that, but "that" bond for me wasn't there, although looking back it was there I was just so disappointed that things didn't go as planned. 

I did realize that bond was there one night while feeding Lynden about a week later.  Lynden stopped breathing, completely stopped while he was eating, for about 10 seconds and then just started breathing again.  I died!  Those 10 seconds felt like a year and when he took that initial gasp to kick start those little lungs of his I walked calmly into the bedroom, woke Danny, handed him Lynden, walked into the bathroom, shut the door and sobbed.  It was then I had found that "mommy bond" I felt I was missing.

Because I knew how I had felt with Lynden I had decided to not have expectations about what would happen when Alyssa was born.  Thankfully she came out breathing and cried shortly after they placed her on me - although it wasn't skin to skin because I was still shivering from coming out of the shower moments before I started to push.  I got to hold her for a bit until they took her to the warming table.  Danny says he made a conscience effort to make sure he stayed out of my line of sight and once she had been weighed, measured and cleaned up he instantly gave her back to me so that I could have that bond with her right away. 

I love my kids, more than anything and everything in this world, and have a fantastic bond with both of them.  So, in the end it didn't ever really matter how it happened because when I look at them my heart swells with love.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

About 3 weeks ago Danny wanted to read in bed before we fell asleep.  I had just finished "100 Years of Solitude" (for the 6th time) so Danny offered to choose my next book.  He brought me 3 and I decided I should read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". 

That was the longest it's ever taken me to read a book of 180 pages.  Although the last third of the book was enjoyable, the first two-thirds was not.  It was slow and confusing (why was Arthur Dent so up to date with what was going on so quickly??).  I know I'm going to get a lot of flack from people since it's a "Great book" but I did not find it as funny and witty as most people I know find it.  Now I've seen parts of the movie (I fall asleep watching it) so I knew bits and pieces of the story, so maybe that didn't help.  BUT, like I said the last third of the book (when they got to Magrathea and I quite liked that mice ran the world and I LOVE Marvin) was enjoyable, so at some point I'll move on to "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

I've started a poll to choose the next book on the BBC list (since I can check this one off now) - so vote for what book I should read next. 





The poll is over here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

What's Cooking: Chicken Fingers and Oven Fries

I have been saying I was going to make homemade Chicken Fingers most of April and after enough delay last night I made them for the first time.  They turned out well and we decided it's a keeper recipe.

Chicken Fingers (serves 3-4)

1lb. Chicken Breast, cut into strips
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup breadcrumbs (made myself - take the crusts of bread that I had frozen and tossed them into the Magic Bullet)
2/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp oregano, paprika, basil

Put flour into 1 bowl, eggs into another, and in a third bowl mix breadcrumbs, cheese and spices. 
Roll chicken in flour, then in the eggs and coat with breadcrumbs.
Bake at 450 for 6-8 minutes a side.

**I got this recipe from a cookbook my sister in law has - when she gets back from Disneyland I'll ask her for the name

Oven Fries (serves 2)

3 medium baking potatoes (can also use sweet potato), not peeled
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Cut potatoes lengthwise in half, then cut each half lengthwise into thirds.
Lay on baking sheet (use cooking spray or they will stick) and coast with oil, salt and pepper.
Bake at 425 for 45 min turning occasionally, or until tender

** This is a recipe from Good Housekeeping's "Light & Healthy Cookbook"

Mommy & Baby Exercises

With both pregnancies I gained 40-50lbs and it was 90% belly weight, so there's still some left over "baby flub".  With Lynden I would occasionally do these exercises with him - with him born in the Okanagan in the early fall we didn't do much walking around until the spring.  I've started doing them again with Alyssa (although Lynden insists I do them with him too when I'm done) and I thought I'd share them. 

The first one I do is I lie on my back with my legs in the air and bend my knees.  Alyssa lies on her tummy on my shins with her head resting on my knees and holding my hands.  I move my knees towards me, while keeping my shins straight, and then away.  Almost like a sit up but I don't lift my head.  It's a great exercise for the abs, and Alyssa smiles every time she moves towards me. 

The next one is while lying on the ground I hold Alyssa under her arm pits and lift her up, hold for 5 seconds and then down to give her a kiss.  Like a push up but while lying down but with a much cuter view than the ground.

I then go back to the first exercise, but instead of bringing to towards me I keep my thighs still and move my legs up and down.  It's harder than it sounds. 

By now Lynden is bugging me non-stop so I do it all again with him, although I can't do as many reps with him as I do with Alyssa - he's heavier and moves too much.  And if I can get Lynden to sit still long enough I try to get in some sit ups, but he's usually bored of it by then. 

I would have posted pictures of me doing these but Danny took some awful pictures (sorry hun) so no such luck.

I'm hoping that if I can remember to do it on a regular basis (my hope is once in the morning and then again after dinner) I can lose a bit more of the "baby flub" and maybe truly fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans without having to suck it in every time I pull them up ;-)