1. Time to take a visit to the mommyhood confessional. Up until this week my nearly two-and-a-half year old has been using a passie while sleeping. I know. I'm cringing too. The thing is, Kolbe didn't even learn how to suck until after his palate surgery when he was one. For bottles and his beloved passie, he always just chewed on the nipple. So when he moved from his bottle to his sippie cup, we let him keep the passie but only at night or during his nap. It was such a comfort item to him that we felt bad trying to get him to learn all these new skills while taking away something so constant to him. But another year or so has passed and the obsession with passie has just continued on and on. Passie is not supposed to leave his bed but as of late it has been emerging all the time. Any time he doesn't get his way. Any time he gets hurt. Any time he's bored. I'm all about allowing Kolbe to have things that comfort him. Heck, I could never imagine taking away blankie from him. But passie had turned in to this crazy game of I'm-not-supposed-to-so-I-want-to-even-more. With the birth of my first nephew a few weeks ago, I came up with the idea to give Kolbe the "opportunity" to send baby Jackson his passies. He totally agreed to this exciting idea and was completely cool with it. Until bed time, of course. He knew where they were but was having such a hard time accepting it! The conversations went a little something like this:
Kolbe: Mama, Mama.
Me: What, Kolbe?Kolbe: Idunno.
Me: Ok.
Kolbe: Mama, Mama.
Me: Yes, Kolbe?Kolbe: Help me.
Me: Help you do what?
Kolbe: Idunno.
He just wasn't sure what to do without passie. I lay with him and we cuddled close and he was asleep within minutes. Same with naptime. He's done better and better and his worries about passie being gone have seemed to subside. Plus, he just beams when we sing his praises for being so generous to his new cousin. We make sure to tell everyone we know so that they can tell him they're proud too! Mark and I took him to bed last night and we all cuddled. After quickly falling asleep, Mark said, "Gosh, he's not a baby anymore." I think he might be right.
2. Things have been a little harried in our neck of the woods lately. Especially with Kolbe, as always. He is an absolute dream with babies but the whole brother-who-steals-my-thunder thing has not been vibing well with him lately. And I hate it. 'Cause it feels like I'm always on to him. And I don't want our relationship to be that way. A few nights ago, Mark decided to hit the sack a little early and I found myself not tired enough to sleep. So I picked up a parenting book I had started once upon a time and it was like God was throwing me a lifeline. I immersed myself in thirty pages or so and came across things like:
-"Stopping bad behavior is parenting at its most basic and least rewarding." (Amen.)
-"It is nine billion times more important to teach a child what to do in the first place than it is to teach them what to stop doing."
-"Effective discipline...seeks to command obedience by strengthening relationship."
-"Parents must constantly fight the temptation to practice what we call "Ex Post Facto Parenting." This is a parent's temptation to leave our children to their own devices until there is a problem, at which point we go in to crisis/punishment mode trying to solve a now-intractable problem that could have been prevented had we only been paying attention in the first place."
A lot of ideas I came across while reading were things I think I've been subconsciously aware of all along, just too "busy" to connect with. Reading it all typed out on paper made so much sense. And while it's easy to want to slap my own wrist and say Come on, self. Look how you've messed up already! The truth is, I have two children who are fifteen months apart. I'm the first to admit that for a good chunk of time there, I was in total survival mode. And poor Kolbe never had the opportunity to learn the right way to do certain things. Like interact appropriately with someone fifteen months younger than him. Someone he has to share everything with. Someone who gets some of mom's attention some of the time. Now that the insanity level has dropped a bit, it's time for me to set aside the "me" stuff (you know, the stuff that's already been put aside for the past few years...) and focus on helping Kolbe understand the way this world works. We had a fabulous day together yesterday. And I'm hoping, praying, and working for the best for today. (by the way, all the quotes are from Parenting With Grace: A Catholic Parent's Guide to Raising Almost Perfect Kids)
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