Hibernating

Haven't heard much from me lately? I've been hibernating for winter. It is SOOOO cold.

Apart from freezing we're doing well. Kathleen is now going to daycare two days a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Victoria goes on a Tuesday too, so I have the day to myself and usually spend it working on the farm. They both seem to enjoy it there. It is in the country, near where they will go to school, so I hope a lot of the kids there will eventually go to the same school with them.

As well as daycare we have also joined the local Playcentre and will be going there one day a week as well. Most of the kids there are Victoria's age, so it is more for her benefit than Kathleen's. Vicky loves copying the big kids at daycare, but I want her to have socialisation with kids her own age too. Besides, Playcentre offers such a big range of activities and opportunities for both the kids and for me too.

We also regularly go to playgroups and music groups and the library. I have to get out of the house most days for my sanity. Plus it's warmer to go out than stay home!

I realise I haven't blogged in a long time. The girls have grown heaps. Victoria is one and a half now. She's talking heaps and learning new words every day. Kathleen still just loves to play and watch TV. Kathleen's favourite sayings at the moment: "I'm such a girly-girl" and "pink is my favourite colour". Groan

The girls are starting to play together sometimes (with help from me) but mostly Victoria likes to play with toys on her own and Kathleen likes to play pretend with me. Kathleen has also started enjoying board games and card games, so we will sometimes sit down and play a few games together. We especially enjoyed Candyland when we had it out from the toy library. Victoria has been watching with interest and actually played a game of memory with us yesterday (with lots of help).

I've been a little surprised how much both girls have learnt at daycare. Mostly songs. In the beginning Kathleen would come home and sing new songs for us every week. After a while Victoria would stand up with her and do the actions to the songs as well. Kathleen has learnt all her Maori colours and Maori numbers up to 10. She can now count to 100 (in English).

One thing we've been struggling a lot with lately, over the last several months, is sleep, or lack of it. First it was Kathleen. She'd have trouble going to bed at night, complaining she didn't want to be alone, then waking up in the middle of the night wanting to come to bed with us (which would be fine if she didn't then keep us awake for the rest of the night or hog the bed). After about a month of that we started a star chart, where she got a star every night she stayed in her own bed and once she had 20 stars she'd get a reward. That worked amazingly better than I could have ever imagined and I think she only got up once or twice since then. Her first reward was a trip to Lollipops, and she still hasn't collected her second reward, which will be a trip to the movies.

We had a month or two of good sleep after that, and now it is Victoria's turn. She is going through a major Separation Anxiety phase, where she cries if I leave her sight even for a second. So she'll wake up in the middle of the night and scream for Mummy. She'll usually re-settle for Peter but if I'm the one to wake up and go to her, I end up being there for a couple of hours because she'll just scream the house down if I try and leave the room again.

Things are going well on the farm. Our neighbours are grazing their stock in our fields now, so that is one less thing we have to worry about at the moment. For a really funny story on farm life, read my farm blog.

-Megz

Face the Future

Well I've finally caught up with the times and joined Facebook. I've been meaning to get around to it since Peter's sister Gayle was here last July. But it's been one of those things low on the priority list. I've also been invited to join by a couple of other old acquaintances.

Then last week I discovered (while playing around with www.pipl.com) that my best friends all have Facebook pages and never told me, nor invited me to be their online friend. How rude!

So I've joined up and already have almost 20 friends. I feel so important! ;-)

Still trying to figure a lot of it out though. Not sure if I'll get a myspace or bebo page. Definitely NOT going to use Twitter.

-Megz

Patience is a Virture

If someone has a lot of patience they are said to have the patience of a saint.

So what do you call someone who doesn't have much patience? The patience of a sinner?

No, a three-year-old.

Kathleen has no patience at all. She can't fathom time or how long something will take. Every night she asks how long it will be until morning and then her eyes well up with tears as she says it takes so long and that sometimes the sun doesn't want to come up. Some mornings at breakfast she asks when it will be dinner time (usually this is because she wants to watch television while I'm cooking dinner).

I used to think I had a lot of patience. That's one of the reasons I decided to have kids, because I thought I would have a lot of patience and be good at it. HA! I have since discovered I don't have any patience at all. Not when it comes to my girls anyway. I can lose my temper very, very easily these days.

-Megz

My birthday present

My birthday present ... A 6 week old border collie puppy.



We couldn't agree on a name for him for the first week. It came down to Muppet (Peter and Kathleen's choice), Timmy (my choice) or Doe-Do pronounced as in Doe [Female Deer] - Do [as it Just Do It] (Victoria's choice).

Popular opinion among those polled chose Timmy as the name but I'm still taking votes in the comments section.

Getting him was a mission. We drove 5(?) hours to Rotorua [with questions of "are we there yet" after only 20 minutes] to look at one puppy and decide he wasn't what we wanted, and then another hour to Te Puke where we found Timmy. And then 5 1/2 hours home again that night with the girls sleeping in the car, and the puppy whining for part of it, getting home at 1.30am.

Now we just gotta teach him not to go toilet inside the house and not to jump on or chew on the children. Victoria is starting to show interest in the potty - I wonder who will be house-trained first - Victoria or Timmy?

-Megz

Crime and Punishment

Kathleen is going through a particularly rebellious stage at the moment. At least I'd like to hope that it is a phase.

Everything I ask her to do, or to stop doing, is met with "NO". For example:
"Kathleen, can you come and get dressed please", "NO"
"Kathleen, come and have lunch", "No I'm busy playing"
"Kathleen, it's time to leave, can you put that toy away and come here please", "NO"
"Kathleen, let go of your sister", (screams from Victoria, Kathleen does not let go)

It gets particularly bad when we're out somewhere and it's time to go, but she just ignores me and keeps playing. For example, we're out at playgroup and it's pack up time. All the other kids and parents are putting the toys away and getting ready to leave. Kathleen holds onto the toys and stands in the middle of the room refusing to budge, and despite my explaining "Kathleen, it's pack up time, you need to put the toys away" she refuses to do so. OR it's time to leave wherever we are (creche, playgroup, the cafe) and I convince her that it's time to go and she stops what she is doing. However as soon as I turn my back (to pick up Victoria or whatever), Kathleen runs over to another toy and starts playing with it, and we have to begin the whole "Kathleen, it's time to go" routine all over again.

WHAT TO DO?

Negotiation does not work.

I've tried Time Out a couple of times at home but that doesn't really work either. I tend to only use Time Out for the big stuff like hitting and pushing, or if she gets all wound up and needs to cool off. The problem with Time Out is that Kathleen doesn't learn anything from it. All she remembers is that she was sent to her room, not why she was sent there. I know because I've asked her afterwards what she did wrong and she says "I don't know" and "you need to say sorry to me for closing my door Mummy".

Threats and bribery appear to work, for example "If you come now you can watch TV when we get home but if you muck around we won't have time to watch anything". I don't like doing this because it seems so negative and I don't want to have to bribe her to cooperate. I want her to do it because she wants to, not because she's going to get something.

Is it just a phase? Is there any other way to get through this phase without locking her in her room until it's over?


Lately I've been reminded more and more of my own rebellious teen and pre-teen years (read: "oh $h1t there's YEARS of this ahead of us). I remember one instance when I was 11 years old, when our class was supposed to be going on a class picnic at the end of the year. But it was raining and the picnic was cancelled and our class got taken to the movies instead (Return of the Jedi - boring!). The movie finished much earlier than the picnic would have, so my friend and I decided to go to the swimming pool for a while. Silly me, I dived in to the shallow end of the pool and hit my mouth on the bottom of the pool and broke a tooth. My parents were SO MAD when they found out. No so much mad that I'd broken a tooth (although they were probably mad about that too). But mostly they were mad that I'd gone off to the swimming pool without them knowing where I was. I got in so much trouble and the sleepover that I'd had planned for the following weekend was cancelled. I was so upset about that and tried to convince them that my friend shouldn't be punished just because I was in trouble.

ANYWAY, the point of this is that at the time all I cared about was the fact that my sleepover was cancelled. I didn't really think about why. I thought it was because I had gone swimming. Only now when I look back do I realise that it was not because I went swimming. It was because I went swimming WITHOUT TELLING THEM. Because they didn't know where I was and they were worried. We didn't have cellphones back then so what was I supposed to do? Go straight home of course.

My point is that it's taken me 25 years to realise just what I was being punished for (ok, I'm really not that slow, it's been a repressed memory for 24 years). So if I put myself in Kathleen's shoes and know that all she will remember is the punishment and not the crime, then how am I going to get the message through to her? Any message, be it now or in the future.

How do I teach her that she needs to do what Mummy says, not because she's going to get punished (or rewarded) but because it is the right thing to do. Because explaining this to her is not working.

-Megz