Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Hurricane Elsie

I have a lot of catching up to do. It's been a busy month. Oscar turned one last month and I have posts in my brain waiting to be written, but school also started and Eli had his two-week drill, so maybe this weekend. But, while I have the little blond hurricane on my mind, I figured I'd go ahead and do an update, because, really, grading papers can wait...again.

Elsie's month was something like this:

Our neighbor let us borrow their toddler bed, so Elsie is in a "big girl" bed, and Oscar is finally in a crib (and not the pack'n'play). I was going to say that she's been doing a good job staying put, but I hear the pitter-pat of feet upstairs, even after using the SuperNanny method of putting her back. She has no fear.



We just had a long weekend, and Elsie had three good days. Not too many tantrums, thank goodness. But, alas, tantrums are still the norm. I can deal with them until she gets physical and starts taking out her anger by hitting or spitting on me, or by pushing, kicking, hitting, shoving Oscar. Then I have to keep my temper at bay.

She mostly refuses to sit in her high chair. Instead, she wants to pull a chair up to the high chair and still eat off of the tray.

We haven't really potty trained, but sometimes Elsie asks to go on the potty, and she does. And because a mother never really gets any privacy, so I've found out, she's apt to tell me "good girl" for my efforts as well.

Toothbrushing is a chore...again. She goes in fits and spurts. We've tried Elsie's turn followed by Mama's turn. But then some days she doesn't want Mama to have a turn and then it turns traumatic. Jill got her to brush her teeth without incident one night while Elsie was in the bathtub. No fair. :)

Her language skills have taken off. She's creating sentences for situations she's never encountered before. The pages of a book were stuck together and Jill was trying to get them apart, and Elsie admonished, "Don't break it!" She's consistently saying "Yes Ma'am" to me. And she knows what is expected when we say she needs to apologize to Oscar. "I sorry, Oscar." Yup. She says Oscar now, instead of Ah-kur.

And the singing. OH, THE SINGING!! Mr. Bill, her old Sunday school teacher, burned us a copy of Steve Green's Hide 'em in Your Heart album (ca. 1990) and I pretty much have it on constantly in the car when the kids are in the car. She loves to sing along. It is the cutest thing to hear her little voice from the backseat.

And she loves to read. Here, with our favorite neighbor:



Here, with her doll:



I will get caught up soon. Promise.

Cheers.

3 comments:

Craig-Jen said...

I've got a post in my head titled "picking and choosing my battles" that I did refer to briefly when Madeline was going to school. So I can relate to the Elsie tantrums and opinions...I encourage you to allow her teeth to slide every now and then and to let her eat from the tray in a chair. If those are battles worth fighting, then fight away! Mama will win, but don't stress yourself over a day or two of unclean teeth. And I have that Hide 'em in Your Heart DVD. It's hilariously outdated. Madeline isn't too in to it, but maybe someday :-)

AsiaMama said...

Love your honesty here, friend! What you described is so familiar to us. We met a new neighbor yesterday and her first question was, "Which one throws the fits?" Yes, she hears them. But she has older teens and could totally relate. That helped me as I fumbled over my words! Keep up the awesome mama work...we are modeling and molding them with every tantrum! (i needed that reminder today too :)

Jeni said...

try an electric toothbrush. I got a little hello kitty one from walmart for $6 for Kate and we no longer have any tantrums during teeth brushing. she used to HATE it...not anymore! we haven't done potty training yet, either, but planning to sometime soon. dreading that. maybe i'll just take kate to your house and let you potty train both the girls for me. potty training boot camp. you're a military wife, you should be able to handle it! ;)