May 16, 2011

• I was going to write down some of the 2-word phrases Grant has been using.  So, here goes:

  Recently he has been saying things like:

  "Get shoe" (obvious)

  "Get Mommy" (which was really that Mommy got something for him)

  "That one" (Today he cried about the shirt I put on him, and later came back to his closet crying.  I asked if he wanted a different shirt, and he said "yeah" and I asked which one, and he said "that one".  It was surprisingly a shirt he had never seemed to notice before.  He certainly has been more difficult to dress the past week.  He doesn't want any shirt, not even his favorites, so after lots of crying I just pick on and put him in it.  At least today he had a preference again, one that he would let me put on.)

  "Here is" (On Friday the garbage truck comes.  We saw it twice at our house, and then when we went across the street to the neighbor's house it came by again, and Grant pointed at it and said, "Here is" -- as in, "here it is".  We also just had fun in general at the neighbor's house.  Their two boys (ages 2 and 4) were there, and the mom was planting flowers.  The three little boys went and caught roly polies and put them on a skateboard and then in a butterfly net.  Grant loved pushing them and making them roll into little balls.  Madeleine spent most of the time helping Charith (the mom) plant flower bulbs.  Madeleine sure loved that.  We had them over for a duplo/scooter playdate recently, and that was fun, too.  Madeleine likes to play with the 5-year old girl more than with the little boys, but she's in kindergarten now so she wasn't there on Friday.)

  The kids are at their grandparents' house.  I took a long nap because Grant has been keeping me awake too much at night.  Then I cleaned a whole lot of the house:  I even vacuumed and did toilets.  Good grief.  I'm usually spoiled with a housekeeper, but she's out of the country for awhile.  Ay de mi.  And then I caught up on some internet tasks.  I guess I have a few more loose ends to wrap up.  I was going to make a kaleidoscope, but I guess I wasn't inspired and/or had too much other stuff to do. 

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  I remembered some more things I wanted to write down, so I'm adding onto this post:

  Madeleine has been throwing some huge fits over really trivial things.  Here are some of them:

  --I didn't want her to come to the shower with me
  --I locked the door to the bathroom and she couldn't come in
  --I undid her seatbelt for her and she wanted to do it
  --I made her wash all of her hair and not just the back part
  
  In general she is throwing screaming fits because she can't control what I do.  Isn't that part of the pain of the universe:  you can't always control what's going to happen to you?  I tell her I love her, but that she can't always have things the way she wants them.  And then if she keeps it up we move towards discipline (including spankings occasionally).  But a lot of the time she gets so out of control I have to hold her and help her stop crying.  I can imagine someone calling that bad parenting, but after awhile I figure she's suffered enough and needs some help.

  • 8:57 pm
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