Category Archives: project 2011

Broken promises

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So…I haven’t blogged in a week. A whole week. I guess this means my promise to blog every single day has been shot. I don’t have any excuses, really. We went out of town, and even getting online was the furthest thing from my mind. And then we got home, and I thought that since I didn’t blog the entire weekend, that there was no reason I couldn’t blow it off one more night. To be honest, not worrying about finding some way of illustrating my increasingly stressful, yet boring life every single day has been kind of nice. Usually, I would put it off until the last second of the night when I was so exhausted, I could barely speak, let alone spell out a coherent sentence. And of course, my days are pretty much indistinct from one another. Saying that I have been uninspired would be quite the understatement.

So why am I here? I figured I owed my imaginary reader and frequent spammers an explanation for my absence, and perhaps an update would be in order. So I’ll start out by telling everyone about the business of the weekend that took me away from my blogging responsibilities:

On Friday, we left for Houston and for Vance’s cousin’s fancy wedding. We couldn’t afford to stay at the hotel, even at the discounted rate, so we stayed at Vance’s aunt and uncle’s house. Let me explain the awesomeness: We had an entire house to ourselves, with a full pantry and fridge, satellite TV, a work-out room, and a pool. Didn’t cost us a cent, and there were no strangers to worry about, and no check-out time. Everyone else stayed in tiny hotel rooms and had to pay for their room service, and had to share the pool with strangers. And they had to pay for parking in downtown Houston. Yeah, we won.

And of course the wedding itself was beautiful, and very romantic.  Both of our children behaved themselves perfectly through the entire thing. Before hand, we weren’t so sure that would be the case, but were pleasantly surprised.

Did I mention we went swimming? That was the best part of the entire weekend. Hours in a pool, no awkward encounters with strangers. And my in-laws gave me my birthday gift, 2 weeks after my birthday, once I had already forgotten that I had even had a birthday. This is what they got me. God bless the people in my life. And yes, I have been watching it with my three year old son. You have to start them young.

Since we came home, I have attempted to clean the house, and I have yet to be successful. This house hasn’t been cleaned since my mother-in-law left 6 weeks ago. I can blame the Sims and Archer, who has entered the unexplained constant crying/fussing/grunting stage. Every single waking hour of his is spent crying and fussing, and it is the saddest thing I have ever seen. I don’t know if it’s reflux, and I don’t think it’s colic, but whatever it is, it’s stolen the sweet happy baby I was just starting to get to know. He seems genuinely uncomfortable. Luckily, he is sleeping, though he went from sleeping in 2-4 hour blocks to 1-2 hour blocks. This is why I didn’t attempt to update earlier.

I don’t think it’s anything, colic or reflux, really. I think he’s just…fussy. His fussiness has just suddenly increased by a great deal. I can still soothe him by swaddling him and giving him a binky, and sometimes walking him around the room or swaying him seems to help. It just sucks to hear him cry every time he opens his eyes. He went from just starting to show us his adorable, gummy smiles, to keeping us up all night with his heartbreaking screams. No. Fun.

So what’s next? This weekend I will be seeing Rush for the sixth time, and I have just started to get excited about it this week. I am really looking forward to it, but mostly I am looking forward to A)A night child-free! With my favorite band! And B) The start of a week Deven free! Of course I love my child, but between him and his brother, he is by far the most challenging right now, and we can all use a break from time to time.

It’s the relatives that are willing to take your kid off of you for more than a few hours that make motherhood a possible endeavor.

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, the third of June

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I have been playing the Sims since about 4:30 this afternoon, non-stop. It is so very fun and addictive, this new expansion. I guess I felt like celebrating the fact that Deven didn’t attack his baby brother once today, heh.

I would get into more detail of anything at all, but I have to get to bed. We are leaving town for a wedding this weekend, and we want to be on the road by 11. Before we leave, I have to stop by the college and talk to the financial aid office. Yes, I will be returning to school in the fall. I have registered for my classes, all three of them, and I am shitting myself with anticipation.

Three college classes, work, 2 kids. My life is going to be insanity. I had better enjoy my summer.

 

gnashing teeth

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I am very happy with the new Sims expansion. The only time I really have to play it is in the evenings when Vance gets home. It’s a toss up whether or not I’m going to be able to convince him to let me use my own damn computer for that purpose. He’s got that whole, “I’ve been working my ass for the last 8 hours at a job I hate, I deserve my video games…” thing going for him. I never feel like I’ve got much to counter that, except that I spend my days wrangling a fussy baby and a very rebellious and demanding toddler who has come up with new and infuriating ways of getting my attention…

LIKE BITING HIS BABY BROTHER.

Hitting him and dropping things on his head are also effective.

I don’t know what has gotten into him. This new aggressive streak started a few days ago when he was sitting next to his brother, and he just smacked him on the head. The baby just kind of jolted, and look shocked, but didn’t cry, so I scolded Deven and put him in time-out. Yesterday, he was sitting next to his brother and putting his face up to him, which is what he usually does, when the baby started screaming in pain. I immediately pulled Deven away from his brother, and upon inspection I found teeth marks on his hands. My reaction was more of terror than anger, I think, though it did turn into anger. After I comforted the baby, I rather loudly scolded Deven and put him in time-out. I decided to take the “nurture” approach, and I took the baby to time-out and explained to Deven that the baby is little, and can’t defend himself, and that biting hurts him a lot. I made Deven apologize to his brother and give him a kiss.

Man, that would have been awesome if it worked.

Today, he bit his brother AGAIN, and then he dropped a relatively heavy toy on his brother’s head for no apparent reason. I was sitting at my desk, and I handed him Buzz Lightyear to put somewhere else, and he decided his sleeping brother’s head was an appropriate place. I just LOVE (but not at all) that getting him to sit in time out is a twenty-minute struggle when it comes to things, like, not listening to his parents, but when he deliberately HURTS his baby brother, he goes straight to time-out and sits there. He knows he is being bad, he just loves pushing limits or getting attention, or just being an asshole. I can’t read his mind.

Now, I’ve asked people (internet people) what they would do in this situation, and the most popular response is “bite him back, see how he likes it!” WHICH I AM SO NOT BEYOND DOING. This kid has been pushing us so hard, we almost WANT to bite him for hell of it. But the “experts” all say that biting him won’t work and is only teaching him that biting is okay. However, a lot of the parents I heard from said that they took the “show them how it feels” approach after trying everything else, and it was often the only thing that worked. I can see both sides, that it’s only stooping to their level, and that they need to know how bad it hurts, and after trying all sorts of methods of discipline, I tend to side with the parents over the “experts” on any given issue. These “experts” may or may not have children of their own, and every kid and every family is different. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to any facet of parenting, including discipline. So don’t judge other parents.

For now, I am doing my best to watch my kid LIKE A HAWK when it comes to his brother. They are NEVER alone together, which makes little things, like going to the bathroom a struggle, but it’s for the best. I am having such a hard time not drawing a line between Deven and Archer, and making the older child feel like a pariah. It’s so not what I wanted. Archer is so small and defenseless, and it triggers some kind of badger-like reflex in me when I feel like he is threatened, even by my other child. The truth is, the biting is not really hurting him. Yes, it hurts, but it’s not leaving any kind of lasting damage to his body or psyche. I mean, he cries the same way when I suction his nose, and he will cry even harder and longer when he gets his first round of shots. He will be fine though. I shouldn’t completely lose my cool when Deven bites. I should focus more on what is causing Deven to bite in the first place.

Life with Deven is so complicated right now. I wish I knew what we could do for him. I just feel like as parents we are failing left and right, and this is the proof.