Sometimes reading is helpful!

Those of you who have read this blog for any period of time know that far too often I read myself into a tizzy or a funk or a murky abyss of worry. No matter how horrible I feel after reading about all the bad things that can happen to children in life, I can't stop reading! In fact, I usually just seek out more worrisome stuff to read. It's like scratching an itch until it hurts, and then continuing to scratch. Am I the only one who does that?

Anyway, this is an affliction of my own doing, and I'm working on it (sorta).

But sometimes reading makes me feel better about things and not worse! (I love it when that happens!)

Like as I am skimming through my Ames developmental book "Your 3-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy" and come across this page:

SEE? Kids have "strong points and weak ones." And the better parents are at recognizing both, "the more effectively [we] can manage to see that much of the time [they are] successful." It's important that parents recognize the weaknesses in a kid "without giving him the feeling that he is not a good and valuable person, as you know he is."

Isn't that what I JUST said? Holy confirmation, Batman. I should be a writer of developmental books for kids!

I also loved it, and needed to hear it, when Auntie Louise (that's what I call her) said this:

She totally wrote that JUST for me. I needed someone to take that unreasonable pressure off of me -- and off of the kids, too. Thanks, Auntie Louise!

One other thing I loved about this book is that she repeatedly says throughout, "Your 3-year-old is not your enemy." She says it so many times, it makes me know that lots of parents feel that their 3-year-old has completely turned against them and all things good and holy. (LOL!) But really, she assures us, this is not the case.

Your 3-year-old is not your enemy, folks. Your 3-year-old is THREE.

(I have been reminding myself of this truth multiple times daily.)

Mini-post before bed (or mini-rant, if you like that better)

I am desperately scouring "Your One-Year-Old: Fun-Loving and Fussy" trying to figure out why my son has turned into one big ferocious and frustrating ball of screaming, crying, wanting, needing, nooooooo! not that! noooooo! ma-ma! waaaaaaaah! da-da!! scream, scream, scream, cry, cry, cry, resist, rebuke, wail, flail, angry outbursts, extended temper tantrums, screaming, crying, whining BRAT!!!!!!!

I know it is bad to call your children names, so I won't publicly name which child I have had it up to here with. He knows who he is!

Ugh! When did this start, I don't even know! More importantly, when does it END?

He has been asleep now since 7:30 and I am STILL mad at him. This is unprecedented. Normally, after a particularly bad whine/scream-fest, once they're both fast asleep, I rapidly decompress and without even trying, forgive them of their toddler transgressions.

But I am tense and frustrated and bitter about this behavior. All the books said if I was an attentive, loving, nurturing mother, my boys would be pleasant and well-adjusted. Not BRATS!!!!!!

Ugh!

Now, back to my book. Must get answers.

(Too bad I can't have a glass of wine. Or even a frikkin' brownie. Ugh!! UGH!!)

Your One Year Old: Fun-Loving and Fussy? Or Fussy and Fussy?

So on the advice of LauraC., I am reading the first in the series of development books by Louise Bates-Ames, "Your One-Year-Old: Fun-Loving and Fussy."

It really is quite helpful and I'm so glad she suggested it (thanks LauraC!), but I think Cary and Dean are very inept speed-readers and so, when they read the title of the book, they completely overlooked the "fun-loving" part. These last few days, both boys have been cranky, cranky, fussy-pots. (This is the clean, Mommy-blog-friendly version of what I have really been calling them in my head.)

Cary is cranky about everything! He wakes up cranky. He crawls around cranky. He eats his food cranky. Holding him, he's cranky. Freeing him so he can explore makes him cranky. Refusing him an item that is inappropriate for babies to play with? Cranky. Giving in to get him to shut it up, pleeeeease? Cranky.

So far the only (and I do mean only) times he isn't cranky are when he's 1) drinking a bottle 2) riding in the wagon 3) asleep. Funny thing: he is still majorly cute, even crabby. I don't know how he manages to pull that off!

Dean is not quite as consistently cranky, but his clinginess has escalated to unprecedented heights. He cries when he sees me; he cries when he doesn't see me. Even when he's playing happily and I'm sitting RIGHT THERE, he often stops mid-play and crawls over to me crying, until I sit him on my lap and give him a thousand kisses. He wants me to hold him now even when he's eating! Do you know how difficult this is? To hold one 23-lb. baby on your knee, while simultaneously feeding him and his cranky brother and trying not to get food all over everything? I worry because it seems sometimes that he is just going through his day sorta in a monotone. And he only seems to escalate when he is going from monotone to cranky/clingy. Even Cary (on good days) escalates to "happy," or "silly" or "wow-check-this-out" But not my Deanie. It kinda makes me sad. And of course, I wonder what I did to foster this and what I can do to change it.

Ms. Ames seems to indicate that 18-months is worse even than this in terms of willfulness and fussiness and refusing to do things they used to love to do. If that is the case, I am going to need a few things:

1. Use the gift card my sweetie gave me to our local yoga studio for Mother's Day so I can go back to hot yoga at least once a week. Hot yoga = sooo relaxing.

2. Memorial Day to hurry up and get here so I can leave Cranky 1 and Clingy 2 with their Nana and Granddad for a weekend and decompress!!

3. A housekeeper and a cook.

4. A hot-stone massage, daily.

5. Brownie sundaes with extra hot-fudge and whipped cream (but that won't make me fat). Also lobster dinners.

6. Regular nights out with the girls, who I miss so much. Couple free drinks from admirers who want nothing in return (not even conversation) wouldn't hurt either.

7. Regular nights out with my husband, who -- strangely -- I also miss. Which is why we are having lunch today just the two of us, raging workload be damned!! Using a Groupon for $40 worth of food for $20 at Lebanese Taverna! Yummmm!

8. Prayer.

P.S. I took the boys for a loooong walk in their wagon yesterday and they loved it. They were so content and interested in the world around them. But boy oh boy -- pulling that wagon back up our hilly neighborhood to get home? No one warned me about that part!!!! How will I do this when Cranky and Clingy are even heavier? I guess I need to eat my Wheaties.