La la la laaaahhhh!

My Dearest Blythe in the Whole Wide World,
It's your birthday today! I love this picture we snapped of you this morning as you saw what the Birthday Fairy had done to decorate the place in your honor! I love your tousled look from just waking up.

You're now EIGHT! I can't believe how my baby girl keeps getting older! Stop it! You know I'm teasing but really, could you just slow it down a little bit? I'd appreciate it...

I love you Baby Girl, my sweet Boo, my most favorite Blythe in the whole wide world. I am so honored to be your mama. And you know what else I'm grateful for? That you're always the perfect size for my arms to hug!

Happy Birthday Sweetie.

Love,
Mama

Okay y'all... last night was the most crabbiest night EVAH! My daughter did the whole rigamarole of "I don't care! You're mean! You treat me like poop so I'm going to treat YOU like poop!" Yes, you read that right. Anyway, it escalated to where I started grounding her a week at a time for every time she yelled or talked back or was being mean. Yep. Wanna know how many weeks she's now grounded? C'mon, take a guess. 3? 5? Nope. Not even close. She has been grounded for 24 weeks!!! I'm laughing about it now but last night? MAN! You know how I finally defused the situation (and yes, I know I should've done it earlier than at 24 weeks worth)? I said to her in a calm voice that I'm going to turn off my hearing-aid. And instead of just taking it off, I was going to leave it in because the funny thing is, it completely blocks out ALL sound. And that I would no longer be able to hear her disrespecting me. I wouldn't turn it back on until she was ready to be civil and apologize.

She did not like that. Oh she did NOT like that at all! She started banging her chair, thumping the table, screaming at me. I could feel the banging around but I couldn't hear her voice. It was really lovely. What was even lovelier was the fact that I was able to calm myself down and not get goaded into a stupid yelling match. After a few minutes, she walked all the way over to me and waited for me to look up. I looked up, smiled and then turned my aid back on.

"Yes?"

"Mom, I'm really sorry for disrespecting you..."

"Thank you. I appreciate it. You understand that you will now need to work off the grounding? That means you need to show good behavior & make good choices to get that grounding down."

"Yes..."

"I love you Boo. I know it's hard to believe that but I really do. It really hurts to see you making bad choices because I know it doesn't feel good for you."

"I know... I'll try to do better."

"Thank you sweetie. Now, please go do the things I asked you to do earlier."

And guess what? She did! Not only that, every time I asked her to do something else, she did it! She even worked with Little Man in sorting & counting socks that she paired up! Later that evening, I announced that I was going to make oatmeal for breakfast the next day. You know what she said? "OATMEAL! And I'm going to be okay with that!" I was completely bowled over. Typically she would start griping & whining. But nope! She didn't even grimace this morning. She didn't eat all of it but hey. It's something!

And all because I turned my hearing-aid off. I'm kidding on that part... as we all know it was because I was able to calm myself down and refuse to be engaged in the pointless yelling match.

Parenting is the hardest job ever and you know, I wouldn't trade it for nothin'!

Yesterday I just got tired. Tired of fighting with my 7-soon-to-be-8 year old daughter. I try, I really do try not to get sucked into it. You know, the yelling and talking back?

You're mean!

Nobody loves me!

See? That proves you don't love me. (After telling her she can't eat as it's 9pm.)

You're rude!

No!

Take those 5 statements, mix 'em up and then press *random play* & *continuous play.* That is what we've been subjected to every single night. Did you read that right? Every. Single. Night!

Hero & I talk daily and pray daily for the fortitude to get through this. To get through to HER that we DO love her and BECAUSE we love her, doing her homework & going to bed on time is the best thing for her. We explain that she's doing a lot of growing and her body needs that rest. And hasn't she recognized yet that when she's tired, she starts making poor choices? As for her homework, we expect her to do her best because we know she has the capability to shine. We've seen it. She just wants to rush through and not care about it anymore. Unfortunately, when she does that, she makes mistakes.

Yesterday, I got a call from the school office saying that she had a fever of 99 degrees and she's complaining of a stomach & head - ache. I sighed. I went there and sat with her in the nurse's room and talked to her calmly about what was going on. The first thing I notice is that she's wearing a sweater and had just been at recess prior to coming in. Hello - she plays hard and so, yeah. She's gonna be a little bit hot. We talked for a minute and then I decide that we'll take her home and get her changed (she had fallen in a puddle too) and bring her back. The gals in the office were a little surprised but hey. On the way back to school, I asked if there was anything else going on. She finally admitted that there was a BIG SPELLING TEST and she was nervous about it. I asked what words were troubling her. Echolocation & nocturnal. I asked her to spell them both. 100% correct. I told her that if she starts feeling nervous or stressed about school work, she needs to tell her teacher. Her mom. Her dad. The school dean. ANYBODY that can help her work through the stress. I don't know if she processed what I said because the next thing I know, she's skipping on her way back to her classroom. Her teacher came over and asked what was going on and I told her. She got a look of disbelief and said, "She needs to come talk to me!!! And anyway, the test isn't until next week! And she keeps getting them all right, anyhow!" Oy. Now, I don't know if this test was really stressing her out or if she needed to just break away from school for a minute or what. But I'm really concerned about her. I feel like I'm wading through a vat of baubles, trying to find the one that will explain it all. Not a good analogy but that's all I've got at the minute. You know, the newborn deal?

And the picture above? There really is a point to it but that will have to wait until a later post. My Slugger is fussing and it's time to nurse before picking up Boo. I really hope, REALLY hope that she'll leave that junk behind.

My Slugger.

Excellent reminder... Please click on the link below. She is my Visiting Teaching companion and I really love her perspective on things related to the Gospel.

Posey

Too many thoughts are swirling. And YOU are the lucky recipient of them! Joy!

I decided that spring break + birthday + new baby + sleepless nights + husband being out of town on a business trip + Easter Bunny = DISASTER. To be fair, the spring break actually went surprisingly well. Scheduled play-dates & activities at home made for a low-key week which helped me out tremendously. It's when Hero came home, that everything went to pot. Meh. I think it was hard for Hero to come home and after the first initial "YAY! Daddy's home!" - everyone starts getting grumpy & starts fighting. It's been a tiring week and unfortunately, everyone including moi, was tired and wanted to get back to a regular routine.

As a result of the Easter bunny thing - Hero & I decided that we are going to "ask" the Easter Bunny to send a letter to the children explaining his sadness that while Easter is a time of spring & it's fun to have Easter eggs filled with candy, he's sad that we didn't focus more on the Savior and what Easter REALLY is about. So starting next year, he's going to be called the "Spring Bunny" and he will come on the first day of Spring. To help us out at Easter time, he will be sending us some activities & projects for us to do to help us focus on the Savior and His sacrifice for us. I just hope that I don't lose track of that idea. Er, I mean LETTER. Hm.

My Little Man turned 4 this past Friday. And did you hear? The Birthday Fairy came (he still thinks fairy is FERRY as we live uphill from the ferry dock.) and decorated the place in SPIDERMAN stuff! WAY cool! The sad thing? Only I was the witness to his excitement. It was really weird not to have the whole family together to pump it up, know what I mean? I snapped a few pictures but I felt like a slowly-deflating balloon... it was pathetic. BUT he didn't mind and I don't think he even cared! Boo was at a friend's house for a sleep-over the night before and Hero was out of town. Later that day, I picked up Boo and Hero came home... and like I said earlier in this post, that's when everything went to pot. Like in the worst way. As in, it was so bad that finally I said in a BIG voice that the birthday festivities was CANCELED and everyone better get their jammies on now because it was BED TIME and if they want to have the birthday party, they had better shape up! The kids meekly (hah! not!) got their jammies on, we had prayers and the day ended. I know, I know - this doesn't exactly win me the Mother of the Year Award on ANY account. However, it needed to be done. And I hope that I never have to do this again. The thing is, Boo will remember the year that a birthday was canceled. Little Man? Probably not. He's so easy-going. We held the festivities the next day and it went well. :)

I bought me the entire series of The Vicar of Dibley. I love me a good Britcom. It's naughty in bits but it really makes me laugh and I could use those during the midnight nursings. I wish I could be Alice. "Abyssinia!"

I need to come up with a nickname for Baby M. I'm completely stumped. On a different note, I love him so MUCH!

I have this sneaking suspicion that I actually sat through a green light on my way home last night. I remember that we had come to a red light and then the next thing I notice is the 2 right lanes had green lights. Typically at that corner, the left turn lane gets the green arrow/light first. Hm. I do know there was a whole line of cars behind me. Probably cursing & honking. That wouldn't matter anyway. It helps to be hearing impaired sometimes and live in the land of blissful ignorance... er, I mean innocence.