Monday, March 14, 2011

Rooms Around

I moved the rooms around.  Now there is a sleeping room for the girls, and a playing/craft/soon-to-be education room.  Miss Monkey is adjusting all right with Baby E waking periodically in the night.  A few recent nights due to stuffy nose.  Other nights, however, it seems baby simply wants to know that we're still around, cuddling her momentarily (not removing her from crib) and she heads back to sleep.  As she's not on a schedule yet, I'm still not getting training in as I would like.  Doing what I can when I can means squeezing in runs, and yoga.  Finally a replacement swimsuit! So, a bit of swimming whenever plausible.  Timing naps with Baby E means I haven't been to the gym in a looong while.  Then passing around another bout of illness, and workouts get pushed back over and over.  Excuses? not really. Re-prioritizing, is my term.  I realized I was becoming too stressed trying hard to get a workout in at all, defeating the therapeutic effect.  So, I'm giving over to care of the baby until she's at a place where it'll be easier to get it in.  Might mean I'll pass up early season races, but come fall I'll be ready to go for sure. 

I had really been feeling as if I had to prepare for battle every day with Miss Monkey The Terrible.  I was really beginning to get into a power struggle over almost everything, and I felt as if I was operating withing a spiritual-mothering deficit. Little patience, no compassion, no energy for empathy.  I was slowly slipping into a "do it or else" mode of parenting.  And that is never how I set out to do this mommin'.  So, The Man and I took a Love & Logic parenting class, and may I simply say WOW.  Much has changed in the past 3 weeks that I've been using my newly acquired tools, there is less yelling, definitely less tantrumming (on both sides), and the theatrical crying we witnessed last night just didn't have the same 'oomph' that it normally does.  Thank Goodness!

F has started her ballet class, and continues into Level 1 gymnastics.  She apparently imagined ballet somewhat different than the reality, and expressed some disappointment around that.  We'll keep going and see what happens though.  When youth ministry teachers see me at Mile Hi they might quip, "Oh, you're Sparkle's mom!" Yes, that's our famous Dragon Warrior Princess Sparkle, and her brothers, all of them led by Luke Skywalker.

E is eating more solid foods, still nurses 3-4 times daily, drinks from a cup if offered, pulls up on everything creeping along, just beginning to attempt standing alone, loves pushing things around looking so proud practice-walking, and shakes her crib in anguish if we leave her up there foolishly thinking she'll go to sleep.

We are getting set to start homeschooling, and a visit to grandparents in Texas post-birthdays.  Keep marvelously moving freely forward, in great gratitude always.

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