Tough love parenting

It's been a tough week of parenting 'round these parts. We spent the second week of the school holidays in Dunsborough with my parents, and the girls (and we) were spoilt by the ease that two more pairs of hands and sets of attention bring to the taking-care-of-small-folk gig. We came home last Sunday and the next day was staff development day so E was at home with C and I instead of at kindy. We had a really lovely day - E seemed happy with the return to normality and was pleased to be pottering around the house playing with stuff she hadn't seen for a week and there was minimal ignoring and grumpiness on her part and consequently minimal shoutiness on mine. 

The next day E went happily back to kindy and afterwards I agreed to her request for her friend A to come over and play for an hour afterwards. I sat in an armchair in the playroom where I could hold a sleeping C and watch the two big girls on the trampoline. I spent some of the time googling child proof gate latches on my phone and emailing my Dad asking his view on which one would be suitable for our gate. When A's mum arrived I didn't get up to see them out and say goodbye as C was still asleep on my lap. I did get up a few minutes later when I heard E messing about by the front gate where she had lingered to wave goodbye and asked her to bring inside the toys she had dragged out to the trampoline. She brought inside one lot of toys and I sent her back out for another. A few minutes passed, she didn't come back in, but I thought she had just wandered off in the garden. I was cross because she had promised (promised! because from a four year old promises mean so much!) she would pack up if I let them take toys outside. 

I plopped C on the rug and started wandering around looking and calling for E. She wasn't inside. I did a lap of the garden. She wasn't outside. Starting to panic I thought "I bet she's followed A out the gate." E has only been able to reach the gate latch for a little while, and knows she is never supposed to go out it by herself (and less than an hour earlier I had been researching what to replace the latch with!) but I had one of those strong, sense of doom feelings that she had done so this time. We live on a busy road. A really really busy main road. I raced out the gate, gambled that she had turned right rather than left as that is the direction of A's house and hooned about 20 metres down the street. And, thank goodness, saw A, A's Mum and E walking back towards our house. Their neighbour had found E in her front garden. She had made it all the way down our street to the traffic lights, turned the corner, walked another hundred metres or so and turned another corner onto A's street and got as far as the next door house.

E's explanation was "I was going on an adventure." What do you say to that?? I said all the obvious things about it being dangerous and naughty and that she was never to do it again. I took all of the good behaviour stones she had earned out of her jar in one go. I put her in her bedroom and told her she could stay there until dinner time. She started carrying on about being hungry and I told her that being hungry until dinner might help her remember not to do it again. A few minutes later she snuck out of her room, filched an apple from the fridge and tried to sneak back into her room. Like a crazy lady I wrestled the apple away from her, screeching, and shoved her back in her room. This was apparently more upsetting than the original punishment and she stayed in her room, sobbing. I stood at the bench, trying to make dinner, with C grizzling on the rug, wondering if I got to cry too or if my job was just to make dinner. I left E in her room until dinner was ready, which was about half an hour, and by far the longest we have ever made her stay in her room as punishment. Later we also decided she is on a three week play-date ban as we wanted there to be a more lasting reminder of the lesson.

Since then we decided that we have been overlooking too many instances of E ignoring us. Either she just pretends not to hear and carries on with what she is doing, or laughs whilst deliberately doing things she knows are naughty. She will sometimes appear sorry later and promise not to do it again, but really doesn't understand the significance of promises. So, since the great escape, every time she ignores us or doesn't do what she is told, we have been putting her in her room. Suffice to say, she has been spending quite a lot of time there. On Saturday we went to my parents' place after lunch, following a particularly gruesome morning behaviour wise. The performance continued once we  got there. I can't even remember what I had asked her to do, but given it was on top of a morning full of not listening, I sent E for time out in the laundry. She wouldn't stay put, and ran out about five or six times, culminating in D threatening to take her home if she didn't stay put for the five minutes we had originally told her. She did it again, and D said "that's it, Mummy and C will stay here and have a nice time with Granny and Grandad but you and I are going home." She immediately shrieked "no, I'll be good, don't take me home!" but D was resolute and wrestled her out to the car. I say "wrestled" because she fought it every step of the way, howling and shrieking at the top of her lungs all the way down the path and across the street. Once in the car it was another wrestling match to get her to sit still long enough to get her seatbelt on. But we managed it and they left, whilst C and I stayed for our "nice time" which mainly involved me feeling shaky and guilty about how physical we had had to be, but nervously determined that it was the right thing to do.

Since then things have been perhaps marginally better (although when D was putting her to bed that night and told E that we hadn't had a very good day but we would all try to have a better day tomorrow, E apparently looked astounded and said "but why didn't we have a good day?!") At least we have been resting slightly easier about the gate as we now have a new child proof gate latch, complete with lock.

Does anyone have experience parenting the small and wilful sort? I do want to raise strong and independent girls, but at the same time well mannered ones who listen to adults and who can at least follow instructions enough to ensure their own safety!

Practicing patience and kindness

Lately I vary between thinking I expect too much of E's only four and a bit years - especially since C has arrived - and just being enormously frustrated and cross at rudeness, lack of listening and deliberate naughtiness. She has also been incessantly chewing on the collars and cuffs of her clothing. She does not seem to realise she is doing it and appears genuinely surprised when when we say "stop chewing!" Often she does it when concentrating, such as when watching television, but also when distracted or tired, and almost always when falling asleep - her pyjama tops are literally in tatters. Objectively it seems mean and unfair to growl and punish her for something she is not doing deliberately. But mean and unfair or not, it is driving me absolutely wild because she is ruining multiple pieces of clothing. 

We had a particularly bad day on Sunday - I took both girls to a birthday party on my own and I came home tired and stressed and E came home tired and hyper. In the ten minutes she was watching iView whilst I made dinner she managed to ruin an almost brand new merino wool tshirt. I was unreasonably angry and declared that she was now subject to a lifetime iPad ban, which prompted a complete meltdown. She went to bed terribly unhappy and I spent the evening feeling guilty and miserable, not about saying she was banned from the iPad but about how I talk and react to her lately. I felt like I am letting myself becoming unreasonably angry over little things. Yelling "talk to Mummy nicely!" is not exactly leading by example. Crumbs on the floor - even ones that wind up there because she wriggles around whilst eating dinner and doesn't eat facing her plate - things she has been asked to do a million times - are just crumbs on the floor. 

So this week I have been trying to be more patient and to talk more kindly. To remember that although four years is much bigger than four months it is still pretty little. To notice how much E adores me and remind myself that a lot of her challenging behaviour is because she wants my attention. To enjoy the nice aspects of spending time with her.

And incidentally, we have maintained the iPad ban and she has chewed a lot less and her behaviour generally has been better. So something good came from what was a pretty crummy Sunday.

The terrible horrible no good very bad day*

We were bound to have one of these. And the timing is dead-on when I would have predicted it - D is back at work, but has not been for long enough for C to get into a predictable routine, or for me to have sorted out how to manage two kids instead of one.

Or I could just blame swimming lessons, seeing as this time last week I was announcing to the whole of Stalkbook that I wanted to move to Alaska.

Swimming lessons are at least partially to blame, even though this week I had wised up and enlisted Grandad's help as a second pair of hands. And I had called the pool and re-arranged the class time from 9:00 to 11:30 so that we would not have to combine all the getting ready for the day things with C needing her first sleep, with getting to swimming on time. I had also tried to be as organised as possible, packing the swimming bag in advance, ensuring E had eaten morning tea and starting the getting-out-the-door process way ahead of when we actually needed to leave. But E had been in a ridiculously hyper, not-listening-to-anything mood all morning, so my blood pressure was already up by the time we left. I made us leave at 10.45 to get to the pool (maybe a 10 minute drive away) with plenty of time to unload, get inside, go to the shop to buy a new pair of goggles to replace last week's broken pair, and for E to go to the toilet before class started. We managed it so well that we had about 25 minutes to spare, and and so sat in the cafe where E demanded an icy pole that I couldn't be bothered fighting about (it counts as good parenting that I only bought her a Frosty Fruit instead of the bag of chips she originally demanded, doesn't it?)

The class itself sucked. Despite having chosen the new goggles herself E wriggled and complained whilst we tried to get them to the right size, then yelled that they hurt and that she wasn't wearing them. The pool is of the huge, indoor, extremely chlorinated variety, so she then didn't want to put her face in the water without them. The usual teacher was sick and so we had a different teacher who didn't know E and hadn't figured out that they need to be extremely firm if they want her to actually do anything besides splash and talk (they wise up to this after a couple of weeks). Every two minutes I was dashing to the side of the pool bellowing "sit still! Are you listening to Henry? Do you want Henry to let you do dives at the end of the lesson?" Then having a shower and getting dressed was a complete production, as was getting in the car. None of this sounds so very bad now, and maybe objectively it wasn't even at the time, and part of me kept wondering whether I was over reacting and being a huge grouch when it wasn't necessary, but swimming has been a pretty challenging time of week, even when D was able to come with us, and we have had lots of conversations with E about how she behaves when we are there.

Throughout all this C was getting more and more tired, despite having slept for more than an hour at home before we left. I normally struggle to get her to sleep for more than 40 minutes at a stretch, and had to wake her to leave. She fell asleep on Grandad's shoulder not long before we left the pool but inevitably woke up as we got into the car.

If I had any brains at all I would have just taken us straight home at that point. But I had agreed a couple of days ago that we would visit one of E's friends after swimming. They live a 25 minute drive away at best, and more if it is trafficky. I know that C hates the car, and generally cries rather than sleeps whilst driving, and it had occurred to me that given she is still an unpredictable napper, that any time of day that involved a half hour drive there and back was likely to be awkward. I should have just said we couldn't go. My friend would completely have understood. But I didn't, and despite the grump I was in post-swimming, and despite knowing C was tired and probably hungry, I pushed on.

I pushed on as far as the freeway. By this point C's grizzles had turned into hysterical screaming. I made my first good decision of the morning and decided enough was enough. I told E we were going home, and was frank about why - that C was tired and upset and that I couldn't drive safely with her crying and that I already felt anxious and grumpy because she had not been a good listener. So she cried too, and I drove home - through roadworks - with two miserable children, feeling like a rotten parent who couldn't manage the needs of either child, and cursing myself for letting C get too tired when I swore only days ago that I would prioritise her day sleeps. 

But we didn't have an accident on the way home and now we are at home. And I will try to remember that we had bad days when E was a baby and I was still figuring stuff out. And that other people manage to go out in public with more than one child and probably (one day soon please!) I will too.

My next question is whether we persist with swimming. I am very tempted to give it up for now and try again next term when C is bigger and hopefully a more predictable sleeper, or at least when the pool can offer us a Saturday class.

* With apologies to Judith Viorst.

Quiet days

I need to re-learn the value of the quiet day. The one where you hold the baby while she sleeps. Venture out from the house only for walks and to the local shops. Sit on the grass in the sunshine while the baby plays on a rug. There is a certain slow pleasure in that kind of day but we've had a lot lately and I enjoyed not having one yesterday. As a result C did not sleep enough during the day which meant she did not sleep enough during the night, and so I got to enjoy her company at 9.45, 1:00 and 3:00. And indirectly in between whilst she was grizzly and only sleeping lightly. Eventually I gave up and stuffed in earplugs, figuring that I would hear her if she gave a proper yell, seeing as her head was about 30cm from mine.

(The alternative explanation is that the night time wakefulness is the beginning of the four month sleep regression, the possibility of which has me quaking in fear. E regressed in spectacular style, going from 8 hour stretches at about three months to not getting night times back together until she was nine months old. I much prefer the theory that if I am vigilant about day time sleeps that the nights will take care of themselves. Or something).

At least I mainly managed the necessary quiet time whilst C was sick. E brought home a cold from somewhere which she quickly passed on to C who quickly turned it into bronchialitis (inflammation of the bronchial tubes, apparently common in babies). After several days of snottiness and a persistent low grade fever I took her to the GP who surprised me by dispatching us to PMH for a check. They seemed less concerned than the GP and sent us home with an information sheet. Several days later we were back at the GP because I could feel the breath literally rattling in an out of poor little C's chest. The GP announced it was now a secondary bacterial infection and so C has had the dubious glamour of completing her first set of antibiotics before hitting four months. They were effective however - 48 hours of them got rid of all the snot and yuckiness in a most impressive manner.

Today is Tuesday which means D has scooted off to kindy with E. I will attempt to practice what I preach. We will walk to mothers' group. Sit in the sun. I shall not attempt to clean the house, or deal with the magic mountain that is my laundry basket, or cook food. I will hold C until she is properly asleep then sit by her basinette so I can pat her when she stirs. That's the theory anyhow...