Kid Stuff Update

I can't believe I forgot to add this in the post yesterday because I thought it was a crucial point that T made. She told me that, when DD misbehaves, I need to stop reacting to it as if it's personal. Like at work, when she pooped on the floor....I was mortified that my child would do this to me. In reality, she didn't do it to me. She just did it. T suggested I stop giving such power to these situations by providing just the negative attention and emotional rise it's meant to evoke. Next time, she says, clean it up and go on as if nothing happened. Easy to say. We'll see just how easy it is to put into action.

Well, last night, with all these new ideas swirling in my head about raising my baby, I tried a few different things. After I picked her up from daycare, we went to this great, independent toy store. I like it because they toys they carry are all meant really to foster imagination and activity. Nothing computerized or mechanical. Simple stuff. So I let DD choose a room and a family of Calico Critters. When we got back in the car, I explained to her that this is a very special toy just for her. We're going to start having short periods of "DD alone time" & "Mommy alone time". I set it up on her play table in her bedroom and I told her if she plays nicely with it, I'll keep buying her more furniture & accessories and then Santa will bring her the big Country House. I'm just trying to make her excited about playing alone and trying to break that need for my constant attention in a fun way.

Also, last night, as I was getting dinner ready, she decided to stand on the couch. This has been the latest battle of negative attention-getting. She jumps on the furniture. Over the weekend, she stood on the coffee table and jumped over to the couch, falling forward and smacking her forehead into the wall. You'd think she'd learn from this, right? No such logic in a 4 year old!! So, I hear her call "Mama, what am I doing?" and I see her standing on the couch. I took a breath, calmly walked into the LR, took her hand and escorted her down and put her in time out. When dinner was on the table, I took her out and asked her if she knew why she went into time out. She told me the reason, said she was sorry. I told her I loved her and we had dinner. During dinner, she asked me to tell her why she went into time out (she likes to rehash things for some reason) and I just said "that's over now, let's not worry about it anymore."

At bath time, instead of getting aggravated that she wanted to run all over the bedrooms instead of getting in the tub, I explained her options to her and told her to make her choice how she wanted to spend the evening. She reacted quite well to that. All in all, I'm pleased with how things went last night and I'm looking forward to learning and applying some new parenting skills that may help DD now and in the long run. This is THE MOST daunting responsibility in the world, IMHO. Knowing that my choices, words, actions, issues are going to brand her thought processes for a lifetime absolutely terrifies me.