The Parenting stuff – Page 16

The Control Freak continues confession..

After spending my day on the verge of tears yesterday and doing my best OCD/OTT thing I rushed out the door to my poor, desolate, deprived and neglected child.

My parents had collected them from school so I had to collect them from their house. I arrive at the house and find the 3 kids sprawled over the furniture happily munching on popcorn and watching a Barbie movie and ignoring their long-suffering mother. I really didn’t know whether I should be happy or sad.

Fast forward to bedtime.

We did an extra long read-and-cuddle-time, me with the girls and Etienne with Daniel and going-to-sleep-time didn’t go too badly. Normally when they are asleep they stay that way apart from the odd wet bed/fever/snotty nose/bad dream etc.

At this point you need to know:

We moved our room around recently. Since we have had children Etienne has always slept closest to the door. i.e. he generally gets up more than I do. Now I’m the one closest to the door. Which is not a bad thing as I generally sleep like the dead. (this has incidentally backfired nicely on Etienne as the dogs bark directly outside the window and Lily has taken to sleeping on the trampoline) (yes, Lily the dog)

That is, when I’m not dreaming up a storm of bizarreness as I have been lately. Really weird dreams which I know is just my mind’s way of processing, but it’s still stuck to me the next day like dog poo on a shoe. So, last night I decided to use some, erm, chemical assistance to sleep i.e. an anti-anxiety tablet. And half a one nogals as I don’t generally take anything to help me sleep.

At 10pm I was happily in bed, children checked on and tucked in, house quiet, alarm activated and drifting happily off to dreamland.

At 01h00 I surface to a doefdoef coming down the passage and the vague shape of a 3 year old looming in the doorway. It’s Isabel. “Mamma, I’m cold.” Drag myself out of bed through the haze and tuck her back in bed with a kiss and a cuddle.

01h30: “Mamma, I’m awake”. Etienne gets up and does something.

01h45: “Mamma, there’s a scary man” Etienne gets up grumbling and mumbling and deposits her back in bed.

02h00: “Mamma, I need to poo”. I get up (very slowly) and switch on the bathroom light and tell her to call me when she’s done.

02h10: “Mamma, I can’t make a poo” whilst looming in the doorway. At which point it got a little ugly and we asked her very nicely to go to bed.

02h30: “Mamma, I’m awake!” Etienne and I: “Go To BED!”

03h00, 03h30, 04h00 and so on: dogs barking. Allegedly. Because I was sleeping.

I’m getting too old for this…

And then, this morning, when we finally managed to drag Madam out of bed, she insists on wearing these shoes my Mom bought her yesterday. In 9 degrees Celcius weather. The pure fugliness of these shoes know no end. And notice the battle scars on her shin.

Sigh.

Light-bulb moment

Daniel turns 6 in May 2012. In South African terms that means that he would go to Grade R next year and then Grade 1 in the year he turns 7 (2013). The girls will only go follow 2 years after him.

I have been writing an angst-filled post about what school to send the kids to in my head for the longest time. I was going to carefully lay out the pro’s and con’s of the various schools we are considering.

Just briefly, there ~~are~~ were 2 schools on our ‘short’ shortlist. The one is the reason we moved to the suburb we live in because it has a really good reputation, but I just felt it was way too big. Big classes, many classes. Everyone that has their kids there love the school. In fact, it is the main feeder school for the pre-school our children are at now and many of Daniel’s mates will be going there next year.

The other school is the school Etienne and I went to (yes, we went to the same Primary school). He loved it as he grew up with all the kids and they are still his best friends. I hated every single minute of it. Hated most of the kids and the parents as we moved halfway through my Grade 7 year from a small town and a lot of the little girls were snobbish backstabbing bitchy little primadonnas.

I would run into these girls from time to time since then and it would still feel like they were looking down their noses at me like I’m a second-class citizen (my own shit, I know). Now that I’m all grown up I’m not really phased at all. People just are who they are and I have too many fabulous friends to spare a self-destructive thought for these folk.

I have been leaning toward sending the kids to this school because it is smaller, in a really good area (we would probably have to move to be able to put the kids in there, but not far) and also has a pretty good reputation. I forced my own little-girl horror down and thought that it might be “giving our children the best”.

Because all we want to do is give our children the best. Always.

Until today.

One of those girls that was at that school with us happens to work for the same company I work for now and we often run into (pass) each other. I always try to catch her eye to greet her, because God forbid someone should think I am rude. And she mostly avoids me. Which makes me feel 12 years old and very, very small.

Then I realised something. If our children go to ‘that’ school it might not be the best choice for them. They might turn out to have as much emotional shit as I do or they might turn out like that snobby, bitchy chick. And I don’t want my kids to be either of those. (I hear you wonder why their father turned out so nice. He’s freaky that way)

So kids, sorry. Mommy works, Daddy works. We live in a pretty good area with a damn fine school just down the road. And there will be other issues you will have to deal with, but they won’t be the same issues Mommy had to deal with (hopefully).

We do the best we can. Always.

Love you muchly.

Dancing

Etienne was telling me about how the kids were dancing in the library yesterday and asked them to do a re-enactment. Which they graciously did. On the coffee table..

Pic share and catch-up

We had a weekend of such absolute cuteness, I just have to share some stories and pictures.

Before I start, just a reminder that you will find this week’s Meat-free Monday post here.

Daniel has started whispering in our ears. Mostly sweet nothings, but often “I’ll be your Bestestbestest friend if..” I have been waiting to see if/when this was going to happen and am handling it better than I thought I would. So cute to see him whisper to his sisters.

We went to a kiddy birthday party on Saturday and my friend Chloe always has the BEST parties. She’s one of those Moms who always has the most amazing ideas of stuff to do with kids, always has home-baked cookies and has a legendary spread at each party.

As you can see our children played very nicely with all the other kids..

The girls watching the candles being blown out on the cake:

The cupcakes my friend made:

Watching tv:

Taking the dogs for a walk, love the light in this picture, I didn’t filter this at all:

Mignon playing with a branch against the tree:

Etienne had them today and will have them tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. To be honest, I expected grimness and chaos when I got home and instead he told me how much fun they had today. I’m a little (read: a lot) jealous. And lucky. And blessed.

Captains log, Day 2.5

2 days down, 3 to go. And I’m alive and kicking. Mostly due to some of my Darling Husband’s very expensive wine, but hey. You do what you gotta do.

Things I have learnt in the last 2 days:

If he is not here someone still needs to take out the bin on a Wednesday night. Thank goodness the garbage truck came very late yesterday!

The dog still needs to eat

Unfortunate poo accidents in night nappies still happen even though the girls have been out of day nappies for ages. Cue much gagging.

The dog will get hold of abovementioned poo nappy and decorate the lawn with it in approximately 40 seconds. Cue more gagging.

I really should learn more about our wine collection. There is was some really nice wine in there.

I should also be more involved in making decisions about meals. It’s just not something that features much on my radar beyond Meat-free Mondays and dessert.

I really am able to bath, feed, clothe and put to bed all 3 kids all by myself with the minimum of whining. But the novelty will wear off very, very quickly.

I love crocheting, but by faaaak it takes forever.

And lastly: our very sweet dog is actually quite an agressive pack animal when it comes to other dogs. Our new little lady is still at Animal Anti-Cruelty as the first introduction did not go well. Which makes me wonder about the insanity of wanting to do this when Etienne is not here.

To be continued…

Captains Log – Day 1

Day 1 without Etienne as he left on a boys trip this morning and will be gone until Sunday. (I know what you’re thinking by the way. How fabulous that she won’t have to put out on Father’s Day! Heh.)

This morning went well under the circumstances: hectic rain, Isabel not wanting to get up, Daniel not wanting to get dressed, Mignon wanting to know where Daddy is etc etc. There were no tears and we were only 5 minutes behind our normal schedule. AND everyone’s teeth got cleaned before we left the house. Bloody miracle if you ask me. I still had time to fight with our (otherwise fantastic) live-in domestic lady Sylvia because she smoked in her room.

And now I hear you wonder what I was doing in her room. Well, the story goes like this:

The wonderful Sally Cameron is driving a project to get people to knit/crochet hats for children with cancer and I vaguely recall being able to crochet and I really have nothing better to do for the next few days so I thought I would grab my old crochet books that happen to be in Sylvia’s room as her room used to be my office and all our reference books are stored there. And the window was WIDE open, there was an enormous amout of air-freshner sprayed that barely masked the horrible smell (Yes, I’m a terrible ex-smoker. So sue me.)

So, to cut a long story short, I will be attempting to crochet a hat or 2 this weekend.

I don’t see much of it in my future for tomorrow though as I have to collect our new doggy from the Animal Anti-Cruelty League and some super special friends are coming over for lunch and crowd control. And then back to work on Friday.

Just as a side-bar, Mignon came home with a tiara from school on Friday that she wore the ENTIRE weekend. In fact, she came waltzing into our room at 06h00 on Saturday morning wearing the tiara. When it came to Monday I promised to buy her her own tiara if she would return the other tiara. And I’m such a wuss. I stood in front of the tiaras and wands that were a whopping R9.99 and thought that I couldn’t just buy a tiara for Mignon, I would buy one for Isabel too. Which meant that I also had to buy one for Daniel.

Here’s the result:

0506539dcb604b38866298808041278a_7 — Another one for the 21st file..

Mom: 1, Kids: 439 000

Each term there is a Montessori Matters meeting at our kids’ school and yesterday’s topic was about discipline in the Montessori Way.

Which was very apt as yesterday morning was a barmy of note in our house. It’s like the kids can smell when you are stressed and all you need to do get out of the house as soon as possible. Which means that everyone starts whining about EVERYTHING and suffer from memory loss when it comes to eating/dressing/brushing teeth/talking/walking and the girls are the main culprits. You get the picture.

At this point I might need to add that I am not an advocate of rushing children because I know it normally ends in tears (mine). The more you rush a child, the slower they move and the more you stress, which means you rush them more and they just move even slower. Completely counterproductive. I much prefer the ‘give the child space to dress themselves’ approach, which is great if you can afford to only leave the house at 08h30. Which I can’t at this point in time.

So on to plan B and the Montessori Matters meeting. I love these meetings because the parents that go are very honest about their challenges and I always come away with something valuable and feeling like I’m not alone. Yesterday I brought up the whole dressing issue and I got some great advice (some of which I had contemplated but was just too downright lazy to try). (See what I did there with the honesty thing?)

Someone suggested that we should wake them earlier and when I said that they are already woken quite early (06h00 – 06h15) we all had a slightly hysterical giggle. The one Mom suggested that we pick their outfits at night and another Mom said that they also pick outfits the night before after looking at the weather picture on her phone. They even pick out 2 outfits to account for the unpredictable Cape weather.

I went home full of hope.

When we arrived I did my little sales pitch (Girls, how about we pick out your clothes for tomorrow and Oh Look! There’s a little sun with clouds tomorrow which means it’s still winter blahblahblah) and they were very happy (read: bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce) to pick their outfits.

We picked the panties and skirts and got as far as stockings when they lost interest and ran off, but I put out their tops, left the little piles on the dresser, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

Because I know Daniel isn’t really a problem I gave him the option of picking his clothes and he was very happy about it, but then trotted off to do something else and never came back.

This morning when they woke up they had breakfast and wanted to get dressed before brushing teeth which was fine and went without as much as even a little whine, except when we wanted to go brush their teeth Daniel was in the bathroom, dressed only in his vest.

Where he stayed for at least 45 minutes. Well it felt like it.

Bottom line: we left a whopping 15 minutes earlier this morning.

Rinse and repeat.

The Couch Chronicles

Tonight I am so tired I don’t even have the energy to switch on my laptop. I don’t think I’ve been so happy to see a Friday in years.

Not happy in a I-hate-my-life kind of way, just happy in a I-really-need-to-gather-my-thoughts kind of way. And in a I-really-miss-my-kids kind of way.

I can tell the day of the week by how many hugs Daniel needs at night: 10 on a Monday and 10 x 10 by a Thursday. Isabel asks for a glass of water on a Monday and water, medicine, hugs and kisses by a Thursday. And Mignon wanders around for a couple of minutes on a Monday and by Thursday night we can hear her down the passage singing songs until she eventually passes out.

They are such little troopers. I feel really bad about yanking them out of bed so early in the morning and dropping them off at school when it’s not even properly light yet.

But. We do what we need to.

Ps please hold thumbs, we are hoping to add another canine child to our family. Details to follow..

Pps I blogged from my phone. Just so you know.

The Food Chronicles

Picture this:

18h30. Supper time in the Roux Household. Everyone is gathered around the table and dinner is almost done. Well no, not really. These days the kids are going for seconds and thirds.

We have had our fair share of fights about food. You know the script: “eat your food OR…”, “If you don’t eat your food there will be no snack/TV/friends to play” etc etc etc, so this has come as a real shocker. I mean, what will we do now for kicks? Is it even possible to have amicable meal? Suddenly there is dialogue, not threats and fights and begging.

And you know what the worst thing was that crossed my mind about 3 seconds after I felt really grateful that they were actually eating? “OMG, my kids are going to be fat.”

How ridiculous that you fight for years to get your kids to eat their food and then, when they finally do, all I want to do is rip that second piece of chicken out of their hands and shout NO!

Speaking of grabbing food out of a child’s hand that is the precise fight we are having with Daniel at the moment: not eating with his hands. When you have a small baby it’s quite easy to measure their milestones. You know they will start smiling at about 6 weeks. And you know what their poop will look like once you stop breastfeeding.

But when is a child supposed to comfortably be able to eat with a knife and fork? Where is the handy week-by-week guide to the 5 year old boy? And don’t think that any 2 websites will give you the same information about milestones.

All we mostly have is our gut and a lot of faith in our child’s abilities. And the intense need not to see our child eat his rice with his hands. And much as we ask him to use his fork to eat his food he will still use his other hand to scoop the food on to the fork or hold on to the one end of the chicken and the fork in the other. Makes us giggle every time. But he tries and that’s all that matters right now.

He has also decided that he wants to bath with his sisters and apparently they sprint for the bathroom when they walk in the door and Etienne has to bath them all at the same time, so it’s wet chaos when I get home. We seriously need a bigger bath..

f76d831012724324b1c3e578704f3022_7 — Wet Chaos

Fun and games

Etienne and I take turns to read to the kids at night and make lunches for the next day. It generally takes longer to prepare lunches, but the chance of injury is considerably less.

This is how it goes:

At the appointed time we have a race down the passage to the bathroom where we fight to brush teeth and end up wiping toothpaste off every available surface. After shouting because Daniel scraped his dropped toothpaste off the floor with his toothbrush. Or because someone tried shoving their toothbrush up the spout of the tap.

But I digress.

We then arrive in the girls’ room where we put their pillows on the floor. (At this point I need to add that this whole lying-on-the-floor-reading-thing was not my idea. I blame Etienne for this incredible lack of judgement.) We then have an extended negotiation about who wants what book. Followed by another extended negotiation about who gets to go first.

And this is where it gets dangerous. Reading to the child in question entails the child being read to lying on Mommy/Daddy’s back. Which is more of a bouncing repertoire of knees to the parental kidneys on a good night. This is after hopping up and down on your back.

The children that are not directly being read to ask where things are in the book. They specifically ask about things that are in plain sight on the pages of books that they have read approximately 400 000 times before.

The children that are not directly being read to are also always keen to brush hair. Specifically the hair of the parent that is trying to read whilst being used for a trampoline whilst fielding questions on the picture content of the book.

You know what’s the saddest about all of this? I absolutely love the chaos of reading time. I love being in such close proximity to my kids so I can rub my cheek against that of the child lying on my back or tickle the back of one of them lying next to me. I love that they love books and don’t fight about being read to. I love that they love being with us. And I love their clean just-bathed-ready-for-bed smell.

So, much as I whine about chaos I love it. Do I really want angelic children that sit quietly whilst being read to? Hell. No.

Just a quick pic share for posterity even though they were posted on twitter and FB:

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