Actually

Lilah has learned that she sounds so much more authoritative if she begins everything she says with the word "actually."

For example...

"Actually, I want some cereal." (as opposed to the waffle I offered her)

"Actually, you should wear the other ones." (referring to my ear rings)

Where in the world did she come up with freggin actually? She sounds like a pompous a-hole, so she must be mimicking me.

The Miles Report

Miles has learned that it's fun to stand in his crib and yell at me in the middle of the night because he can't figure out how to sit down (a skill he has no problem with during the day...)

On the fun side though, he has learned to dance. His moves are super awesome. Pretty sure he's on his way to America's Best Dance Crew soon (his crew will consist of several stuffed monkeys, a rubber duck, and Sofie the Giraffe.)

Keeping up with the L

I've started homeschooling with Lilah for about 30 minutes a day on pre-preschool stuff lately. I wasn't sure how it would go because she's so all over the place and is like me, can't sit still for one second. She seemed ready though. My LP is blowing me out of the water. Not only does she beg to keep doing our learning games after the 30 min is up, but she's just breezing through them. The pediatrician once told me that I'd have a hard time keeping up with her and I was all like, nah. From all my time of teaching I never felt like I struggled to stay one step ahead of my students, but seriously, this kid of mine, I am running after her. The ped was right. The challenge will be for me to keep up with her intelligence. And much to my surprise, as long as I'm moving fast enough, not only is she able to focus on one task for long periods of time, but she gets it too. Homeschooling her is going to be way fun!

Revenge of the Minels

The day is here folks, the time has come for Miles to enact revenge on Lilah for 8 months of inadvertent battering. He's stronger and nearly bigger and he's a clobberin fool. Lilah can't be within six feet of him without being accosted: hands in the face, pulling hair, bulldozing over, head butts... Miles is so gentle and sweet, but he's completely unaware of his strength and he's so playful. He's also a great doberman in training and has learned to react to "git 'er!" where he chases, clobbers, and wrestles with Lilah on command. I've also learned to use this as a tool to gain a few minutes of peace because I can tell Lilah that if she doesn't want Miles to "git 'er" then she might want to play at her table for a few minutes, and he then spends the next several minutes trying to climb her table. Pretty soon I'm going to have two kids standing on that table, Lilah probably screaming and crying and Miles laughing hysterically.

Dude, You Just Farted in My Hand and other funnies...

Funnies of the day...

Lilah: Minels got a bleedy feenur (after discovering tiny little bloody fingerprints everywhere. I guess Miles got a papercut on one of her books.)

________________

Later in the day...

Lilah threw a major fit over not being able to give Miles a kiss goodnight because she was finishing up her bath. Jade had to grab her out of the bath all naked and dripping wet to run her to his room so she could kiss him goodnight before I put him in his bed. On his way back down the hall to the bathroom I heard him say "OMG dude, you just farted in my hand!" and Lilah laughing like she did it on purpose.

_______________

Lilah insisted that I wear my fuzzy black slippers to dance class. She said I would dance better if I wore them (more specifically she said "you dance better in these fuzzy shoes.")

My Little Mirror

I know I've said this before, but interacting with Lilah is like looking in a mirror. Sometimes I don't like what I see, but upon close inspection, it's because I'm seeing how I'm a total pain in the rear!!

Today as I was reading the book Raising Your Spirited Child, it reminded me that personality clashing or similarities will often be the source of conflict between you and your child, and just looking back on the last few weeks, I see how incredibly true that is. We've been shut in our house a lot lately due to weather. Neither Lilah nor I handle this very well, so by the end of the day we're both insane and making each other more insane. I see the spiral downward. We both need to get out of the house and interact with the world, so as a way to cope with not being able to do so, I get on the phone to interact with someone over the age of 2 for a while, to hopefully alleviate some stress on my part. Lilah, also stressed, gets more stressed because now I'm not interacting with her, so by the time I get off the phone, I should feel better, but instead I've got hell to pay for asking her to entertain herself for fifteen minutes, which is impossible for her since she's all crazy from being shut in all day. Things only digress from there and continue with a downward descent of actions and reactions.

As I was reading and reflecting about this today, I was struck with how awesome that is though, that I have a child that wants to be on the go as much as I do! And how in the future we'll be so blessed to be able to cope with struggles through engaging in conversation with each other, rather than me having to phone a friend. So the good news is, I've got a mini-me. That is also the bad news. I guess it's in my best interest to focus on the good news and be excited to have so much in common with my child. Thankfully Minels is happy to be along for the ride.

Diet Coke

Funny of the day:

We're in the car on our way back from the grocery store. We stopped at Wendy's for a "special treat" lunch and did drive through.

Lilah: What choooo drinkin mama?

Me: It's a coke

Lilah: No mama, it's a diet coke

It was a diet coke. I guess I never thought the diet part would be so significant to her. hahah!

Minels, My Sweet Sweet Brute

Ah, my sweet Minels (as Lilah refers to him.) He is in our family to diffuse the static electricity that so easily builds up between Lilah and I since we're so much alike. He has the ability to automatically de-spaz us with such simple gestures. Today as Lilah was in the middle of a mega meltdown, sprawled out on the floor and screaming, over the fact that she couldn't have mac-n-cheese for breakfast (we don't have any or I probably would have conceded,) Miles literally crawled (bull dozed) right over her, swooped up her baby doll in his mouth, and clomps away. It was like he was rescuing that baby from Lilah's mania, although he was not interested in soothing the baby, he just wanted to gnaw on her head for a while. If it were anyone else taking that baby, Lilah would have totally gone off the deep end, but since it was her Minels, it was hysterical. After that there was only laughter, no more tears, and I was wondering why I even had the parent role at that moment since my 8 month old was obviously better equipped to take care of that situation.

Funny of the Day

Today Lilah was jumping on her bed (supervised and encouraged) and she looked over at me and said "mama, I'm taking BEEEEG breaths!!" I love how she was in tune to her breathing as she was in the midst of being so active.

Poor Minels. Mr. Mellow seems to live in the shadows of his sisters BEEEEGness. I promise you though, I notice his lovelies every day. Today he surprised me by going from crawling to sitting for the first time! Right after helping himself to Lilah's box of toys, which he does quite well, and always with such purpose.

Raising My Spirited Child

Today I started reading the book Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka in hopes of just tapping into Lilah a little better. Reading through the author's description of the spirited child, not only was I reading a complete verbal illustration of my child, but of myself as well. "They are normal children who are more intense, persistent, sensitive, perceptive, and uncomfortable with change than other children...It's difficult to describe what it is like to be the parent of a spirited child. The answer keeps changing: it depends on the day, even the moment." I constantly realize that life with Lilah is like looking into a mirror, only I'm proud to see that she's definitely the better model, the new and improved version. The 2.0.

This book is so insightful so far in helping me better define personality characteristics, of both myself and Lilah. I realized tonight while reading that I often think of certain qualities of mine as being negative after being told so throughout my life, and that I can translate these negative associations to my children as well. I have long ago set upon the journey to make positive character associations with all of Lilah's quirks and challenging aspects, but didn't ever make this connection with myself. I'm excited to have that interesting insight, that seeing certain things in a positive light starts with me, seeing it in myself, so I can then translate that to her. I guess I was doing it the other way around, giving Lilah positive terms for her personality facets, but not myself, which has been causing a breakdown in the system. I am not patient with myself, so striving to be patient with her hasn't been going as well as it seemed that it should have. This was interesting insight for me that I think should serve me well in dealing with my spirited child.

I will be interested to see where the new ideas presented in this book will lead me on my journey to becoming a more available, more understanding, more in tune parent. It's funny how things are when you have a child that's so much like you, you still manage to become blind to the best way of dealing with challenges, even though the answer is as simple as asking yourself how you'd like to be directed.

You Win Peer Pressure

I've been resisting the urge to start a blog. More so because I wonder who in the world would want to read it. I realized that it would be nice to have something to document all of the crazy and funny moments that mark each day, regardless of its entertainment value to others. So... I have folded to peer pressure and away we go with this whole blogging thing...