Thoughts on a Toddler

I’ve come to realize that everyone does better, loves, thrives at parenting at different stages.  Some people struggle with the newborn stage, some toddlers, or older kids.  I’ve discovered I struggle with a toddler.  I had no problem with the newborn baby stage.  I loved every minute.  I never thought it boring that he just laid there.  It didn’t bother me he couldn’t talk.  I soaked him up, every snugly minute of it. 

Now I’m exhausted and frustrated every day.  Having a toddler is really hard for me.  I was having a hard time with this.  When I say frustrated I mean really frustrated.  I have such a hard time keeping my cool.  I felt like half the day I’m trying to keep myself from blowing my top.  I found myself taking lots of deep breaths.  There have been many time outs for Mommy as well as Croix.  I would be so tired!  I just feeling like I’m dragging all the time.  I felt like the only thing getting me through the day were those sweet moments when Croix would just stop what he was doing to come give me a hug, or say I love you, or do something so sweet or funny.

The daily frustration and exhaustion started to wear on me.  I started thinking “what is wrong with me that I’m incapable of keeping up with a two year old without being exhausted?!”  It made me sad that rather than relishing this time, like I want to I just feel like it is such hard work.  I found myself just wanting to scream sometimes.  At Croix, or just in the air, just scream.  I would just get so angry.  I felt guilty, because I love him so much, I wanted this (motherhood) so bad, and yet here I was struggling to get through the day. 

I decided I needed to really look at the situation and see what I could do to improve it and what was at the root of it.  I feel as though a little introspection and self-evaluation always helps me to find a solution, or at least come to a place of acceptance, healing, and growth.

I really felt like my frustration was a bit unreasonable.  I felt that I should have the ability to be more patient with my little boy.  So when I was in that moment of just pure frustration I tried to think why am I here?  Why do I feel like this?  Is it really because Croix just climbed into the sink and squeezed a tube of toothpaste down the drain?  No, a tube of toothpaste is only a couple dollars, he is fine, not hurt, it’s not that big of a mess to clean up, sure I‘ve pulled him out of the sink a dozen times but he’s a toddler who is learning, I’m teaching.  I could find no good reason.  It was like this anger just came from nowhere, boiling up in me.  I felt like I just wanted to take Croix by his little arm and smack that little butt till he would listen to me.  Those feelings scared me.  I have not nor will I ever hurt my child, I will not do that.  I don't even spank for fear that if I get comfortable with that it would be one easy slip to inappropriate.  (I even went to counseling while I was pregnant because I was having these fears that I would not be able to rise above my childhood and be a good parent.)  Yet here I was thinking these thoughts of hurting him.  As I sat on the floor and prayed to know why I was struggling so much a thought came into my head.  It was something I had read in a parenting book.  I don’t remember verbatim what it said but the essences of it was, thinking back to your childhood do you want to recreate the way your parents disciplined you or parent a different way.  When I read that I thought I don’t want to do much of anything my parents did!  The next line had hit me hard when I read it, but even harder as it came to my mind.  If you want to do things differently then you cannot trust your instincts.  You form your instincts as a result of your experiences.  You do not want to duplicate the experiences you had as a child so you will have to use logic over your instincts and learn to parent better than your parents.  As I sat there I realized all the anger and frustration I kept feeling were my bad instincts.  I was feeling what I had seen and experienced as a child, anger.  I also realized that I had not done anything to Croix that I would be ashamed of.  What I was ashamed of was the way I was feeling.  I was feeling that way because of what I had experienced as a child.  I began to see the whole situation a little differently, rather than feeling so guilty I was feeling this was I was happy that I was controlling myself despite of that.  I was doing a good job!  I was not letting those feelings control me, I was controlling them.

It’s as if just realizing that has helped me to not be so angry and frustrated.  Sure I still am frustrated at times, Croix’s a super busy toddler who gets into everything and is on the go constantly.  But it’s almost as if when I start to feel that was I can say, no, that’s not who I am, I am better than that.  Rather than getting to this point of unwarranted frustration, it’s more an average level of frustration.

As far as being exhausted, I had to refill a prescription (one I’m taking to try and help get pregnant) and one of the side effects is drowsiness!  Thank goodness it’s not just me being incapable!  It’s a stinking side effect!  That's why I feel so tired and exhausted!

I’m hoping with this new found insight I can continue to keep from getting to that boiling point so often.  I’m always surprised how abuse can rear its ugly head at the most unexpected times.  It lurks in the shadows waiting to remind you of all that you’ve been through.  Well thanks for reminding me, it just made me that much stronger, and more determined to be the best Mom I can!

Croix

I feel like there is so much that Croix does that needs to be documented. They are just funny little things. The silly things that make him my sweet Croix. Rather than a million posts of one little story I'm just going to do one long post of the latest things Croix has done.

Croix enjoys brushing his teeth. Well maybe he enjoys the toothpaste more then the actual teeth brushing. We had brushed and he wanted more tooth paste. After telling him “No we’re all done brushing teeth” I put the toothpaste back in the medicine cabinet. He proceeded to open the cabinet open one of the drawers and climb up into the shelf so he could reach the medicine cabinet.

The other day I went to the bathroom. When I came out Croix was chewing on two knives. Not butter knives either real knives. I know better than to leave knives on the edge of the counter or on the table. He had gotten a bowl out of the cabinet and pushed it up to the counter and gotten it off the back of the counter where I had left it. He got the other one out of the dishwasher.

I found him on top of washer and dryer. The door was open and he pulled himself up and was playing with the laundry soap.

He was playing in our closet and found my old roller blades. He came hobbling out with one and said “Mommy bike shoes?” I thought that was pretty smart of him to look at that put together that it looked like a bike (has wheels) and looks like a shoe.

Croix is now a true Arizonan. He loves the rain. Ever since we had our first monsoon storm where he could go play in the rain, every time he goes outside he says, rain?

Along with the rain he now knows what an umbrella is. He calls them unlellas. We went to In & Out the other night for dinner and he kept pointing to all the unlellas. It also happened to be raining. That was a fun dinner, we sat outside to enjoy the sprinkles.

When we wash hands we sing the ABC’s. He is trying to sing along now. He mostly just makes letter sounds and a few letters, but he’s trying.

The very week he turned two he said no for the first time. He tells himself no, no, no! TOO FUNNY!

We had a big monsoon storm and it blow a tree down at the park. Croix noticed it had been blown over from the rain and kept pointing at it saying ut-oh.

One of the things he got for his birthday was sidewalk chalk. We pulled it out and colored in the back yard. He loves it. He always wants me to draw the Wonder Pets. I used our watering pot to rinse it off. The next time we were drawing he gets the watering pot and goes over to the faucet. He turns the water on and holds out the pot, getting only a few drops of water into the pot. As he’s walking back to the patio he dumps out the few drops he managed to get in. He did this over and over with no clue that he was not doing a thing besides getting his shoes wet!

Whenever you ask Croix what he wants for a snack he says, ummm meat annnnnd cheese. (I really think this is funny since we don't even eat meat all that often, in fact we eat vegetarian twice a week!)

He cries “Hurray” every time he goes pee pee…still!

Croix loves his Daddy more than anything else in the world.  He loves playing with him and being with him and wants to be just like him.  When they laugh and play together it makes the world a better place.

With Daddy's hat and iPod

I don’t know if he’s not sure of the difference between pee & poo or if he just doesn’t know how to communicate the difference but he still says pee pee when he needs to go poo. So I’ll take him and he won’t do anything. I’ll get him down, wash hands and then we repeat this a handful of times until finally he is frantically crying PEE PEE! PEE PEE! Then I know, ah-ha, he’s not just fooling around, he just has to go poo!

He has discovered buckles. He loves them. He will sit and do the buckle on his high chair over and over.

When we are getting ready for bed we’ll read our stories, then Croix will say "and arms", meaning time for prayers. Then after prayers he says "and songs", meaning it’s time to sing our song before bed.

Croix keeps saying E all the time when he is talking. He says it before just about everything he says and in between words too. It reminds me of how in Spanish they say Y (Pronounced E) which means and. Croix is like 1/8 Spanish. I don’t know if that is what explains this or not. But I’m going to go ahead and say it’s his Spanish coming out in him.

Croix loves to do “sweepman” or Superman, where I’m lying on the ground he puts his belly on my feet I lift him to the sky and we say sweepman” he throws his arms out like he’s flying and love every minute of it. He also loves it when I throw him onto the couch over my head. And in the process I get a work out.

He has a few favorite songs. The wheels on bus is one of them. He especially loves the verse the mamas on the bus go ssh ssh ssh. Sometimes I’ll hear him singing to himself and saying sssh ssh shh. He also loves old McDonald, he’ll sing E-I-E-I-O.

I love him more than I thought possible. He brings us so much joy!

Free And Clear

We now own my car free and clear!  Not a single payment due on it! Such a great feeling!  Now we can put that extra money toward another debt (first Brent's car then student loans).  We are one step closer to being debt free!  I'm pretty stoked about this people!  By the end of the year we could have both cars paid off!  Also Brent got a raise!  Nothing big, just his annual raise.  But a raise is a raise and extra money, even a little, is always nice!  Little things to be thankful for.  Our lives are good. 

We are blessed!!!!!!

Prenatal

There's just something a little bit sad about going through an entire bottle of prenatal vitamins with out actually getting pregnant.  Knowing that for at least 240 days I took that little pill so my body would have all the nutrients to produce a good egg and sustain a pregnancy.  Yes there's just something sad about throwing out that bottle with that huge number on it and getting  a new one and still not being pregnant.  Oh yeah even more sad that this is the second empty bottle I've thrown out.  The first one was just finishing off what was left from Croix's pregnancy.  I think it's time for me to write a list of things I'm thankful for again!

Milt

Croix kept saying milk with a p sound at the end, like milp.  So we worked on saying M-I-L-K milk, like c-c-cat, milk.  Because he says cat fine, so we know he can make a K sound.  Well now Croix says milt, with a T end like cat ends in a T.  He's also started adding a T sound to all sorts of words!  So now we say M-I-L-K like truck!  We'll see if that works!

PS milt is actually a word, and it's a little gross. But not inappropriate don't worry if you want to look it up.

Scratch That

When we had our consultation with Dr. Moffitt he had recommended that I gain 10 pounds, and that we could do that and wait a few months, just keep trying on our own and see if that helped.  I of course did not want to wait.  I had a plan, and was already 3 months behind!  Brent wanted to wait, thinking that Dr. Moffitt had recommended that so we should try that first.  So we took the matter to the Lord in prayer.  I know I’m not a very patient person, I know the Lord has a plan, I know that personal revelation  is real, so I knew that I could receive an answer to my prayers.  But I was worried that since I wanted so badly to go ahead I wouldn’t be able to decipher my desires from the spirit, and the Lord’s will.  So not only did I pray that we would know if we should  wait a few months to start treatments, or start the next month, I prayed that I would clearly know the Lords will.  Elder David A. Bednar came to our stake conference.  I knew that as I listened to an apostle of the Lord I could hear the Lord’s will for me.  As I was praying, in preparation for stake conference a thought came to me, if there was a talk about patience, enduring to the end, etc then that would be my answer to wait.  If there was a talk about going forward with faith, courage, etc that would be my answer to start right away.  I also knew that there are so many gospel principles that could be address during conference and neither of those topics had to be addressed.  With that in mind I knew if neither topic was discussed then I would have to rely upon the gentle whisperings of the spirit.

As I sat in conference I heard Elder Jose L. Alonso, of the 70 read D & C 58:27-28 and taught about how we are to act and not be acted upon.  How we are to do good before we are pushed to do so.  Then I heard Elder Bednar say that we are to act in faith and then we will receive blessings.  That we must have faith to act and then power, blessings will follow.  I had my answer, from two servants of the Lord!  There was no doubt what we should do.  I was so excited and thought finally I don’t have to keep waiting!  I can move forward.

Today I learned the reason our answer was just to start and not wait.  It wasn't so I wouldn't have to wait, it was so I could start my waiting a little be sooner.  I went in for a baseline ultrasound this morning before starting fertility medications.  This is to check the uterus, ovaries, count egg follicles, etc.  They found a cyst on my right ovary.  It’s big enough they do not want to start treatments yet, as it might cause complications.  This means I start another medication to try and shrink the cyst.  Take this for 30 days.  Then we will check and see if it’s still there.  If it is, I take it another 30 days, and then another check.  If it’s still there at that point we’ll look at possible surgery to remove it.  The Dr. did seem optimistic that it will shrink and go away.  So I’m not too concerned about it.  I am disappointed.  The medication to help shrink the cyst is like birth control, which means no chance of getting pregnant this month, which means another month of waiting.

Remember our Plan?  Well scratch that. Never mind.  Apparently every time I think I have things figured out the Lord reminds me He is in charge.  I learn to be a little more patient and a little more humble.  I think this is my great lesson to learn in life, patience, trust in the Lord, and faith in His plan for me.  I am also thankful that we didn't wait 3 months to go in and find this and then have to wait even longer!  So for now I pray this stupid cyst shrinks, and that we can start fertility medication next month!  Hopefully we will get pregnant soon and it won't take months and months and months of being on medications to get pregnant.  In the meantime  I'll just enjoy this time of just Croix and I.  I know it's not going to last forever, there will be another little one here someday and I'm sure I'll then miss this time of just us.

PS as I was driving out of the parking lot there was a song playing on the radio that kept saying "it's okay, it's okay that's right it's okay"  Yep it's ok :D