Our Kids

OMG, Lela has the worst, biggest, longest and loudest tantrums EVER! This child will tantrum until you would rather gouge your eyes out with a dull spoon than endure another moment of the blood curdling screaming. Okay now that that is off my chest I feel much better. But seriously this gal can wail. I don’t know if she is just totally exhausted or totally overstimulated these days but man oh man is she on fire. It is a horrible spiral that can sometimes be avoided but when it can’t watch out cuz’ here come the fireworks to rival the Olympics this year. She is uber stubborn (gets that from both parents) so you can’t force her.

This week she has really taken to helping herself with food, drinks and what not which is cool and something to watch. She climbed on the counter this week and got a glass and then served herself and Piper up some milk from the fridge, cute but a might bit dangerous. She and I have been butting heads over how much toothpaste she is using (she puts gobs and gobs on and then eats it all during brushing and it has too much fluoride for her to do that). So after a row about the toothpaste she thought I was distracted reading Piper a book and she slipped out of the room and went to the bathroom where she proceeded to lock the door….yes that is right LOCK THE DOOR. OMG! I was floored (and laughing) that she locked the door, they NEVER lock the doors. Anyway, I opened it with my handy tool much to her distress. Now she is locking doors as she pleases and when you open them you are greeted with a mighty tirade that never goes well.

Tonight was a doosy, today had been really challenging all day long and I am not sure why. She doesn’t seem like she is overtired because she won’t settle down or go to sleep. I did have her do some relaxing twice today but it did not seem to help. We even went on a bike ride this evening and a quick play at the park to burn off some energy. So while I fretted early in the day and sweated later in the day to try to help her, it turned out to be in vain the melt down happened anyway. In the end it took both Jason and I to finally get her down. Poor Peeps had to go in to my room to sleep from all the yelling and poor Lela fell asleep in a puddle of tears in her daddy’s arms out of exhaustion from a very long nighttime tantrum. Sigh…..both Jason and I are becoming emotional eaters, LOL!

Well with the addition of one very active almost one year old it has been harder and harder to get on the computer to post. Landis is doing super, grabbing everything, crawling everywhere and putting everything in her mouth. She loves the toilet, I think it is just the right size to pull up and stand at, so we have to keep the bathroom doors closed which is hard with two active almost four year olds running a muck! We are having a good time most days but I am sensing that the girls need more structure, or that I need more structure.

The sibling rivalry between Piper and Lela is in full gear but I read a really good book called, Siblings Without Rivalry and it is helping me a lot. We are also having increased tantrums real and fake (mostly fake from Piper) but are handling that well too. Everything has changed from the way we put them to bed to the way we handle their tantrums. Overall we are managing and since Jason doesn’t post about how awesome I am I will post for myself. I think I am doing super at handling all this emotional upheaval at our house, much better than I had been prior to my vacations this summer.