Rushing a toddler is a bad idea.
We try to get the three of us out of the house most mornings by 7am. And it's getting harder and harder. Rachel is pickier and slower with everything. Getting dressed, eating breakfast, getting into the car, saying good-bye at daycare all seem to take way longer than they should. It's very challenging to get to work on time for the person dropping her off! It can take 10 minutes to get her to wear shoes. Some mornings I've taken her to school without shoes on, thrown them at the teacher and said 'help!' and ran away. I'm sure on those mornings the teacher laughs at the crazy lady who is half dressed, hasn't brushed her teeth or hair, and is rushing out with extra toddler clothes falling out of my arms.
The other end of the day isn't any easier. Although we've always prided ourselves on a good bedtime routine, our routine length recently has been getting longer and longer and longer. I actually think that in every capacity, Rachel's ability to perform any task has been getting slower and slower. Probably she knows how to delay getting dressed for school in the morning or getting pajamas on at night as a stalling technique. She is good at testing every possible thing, pushing buttons, and manipulating and negotiating. But she is also a very distractable 2.5 year old.
Take this evening. Jason is away, and my patience with Rachel when I'm solo with her hour after hour wears thin. I was only half paying attention during bath because I was trying to clean the bathroom at the same time, and I paid for it. Before long, Rachel was 'cleaning the tub' herself, and had water all over the place. I removed her from the tub and told her bath was over because she couldn't keep the water inside the bath tub, and this resulted in a major breakdown. As she screamed in her room for a minute, I started laundry, and then returned to her to try and comfort her.
After convincing her to get into her pajamas (which took 10 minutes and we had another meltdown because her favorites were in the wash) and have snack, I stupidly asked her an open-ended question about what she would like for snack. She suggested melon. So I went downstairs and got out the melon and milk. She followed me down and said 'No melon. Applesauce and cheerios please.' So I put the melon away and gathered up everything to go back upstairs to our snack table. We picked snacking upstairs at night time thinking it would be easier to eat snack quickly upstairs then coming downstairs to eat snack and go back up again (wrong!).
Upstairs she asked for pants because she was cold in her new nightgown. And then she asked for reindeer slippers. And she was taking down her other food. And then she asked for pears. So I reluctantly went downstairs and got pears, and came up to find out that she had spilled her milk. And I just about yelled at her but, instead, I quietly cleaned it up and sat down. She politely asked for more milk. And I debated but I went downstairs and got her more milk.
I lay down beside the snack table, tired and hoping bedtime would arrive finally. I started stretching my back and Rachel started with questions:
'Mommy what are you doing?'
'I'm stretching my back.'
'Why?'
'Because my back is sore from going up and down the stairs so many times and stretching it out makes it feel better.'
'Why?'
'Because it feels good for my body.'
'Why?'
'Because the baby in Mommy's tummy makes her back hurt sometimes'
'Well that's not nice of the baby, Mommy.'
(Mommy doesn't respond because she doesn't know how she got herself into this mess.)
'Mommy after snack can I do exercises with you?'
'No, honey. We need to finish your snack, brush teeth, read stories, and go night night without any more play time.'
'And then after bed, we can lie down and lift our backs up together so the baby doesn't hurt your back?'
(Mommy smiles.)
A few mintues later, Rachel gathers up her dishes and heads to the sink, which is the first time she's ever brought her dishes anywhere. She tries to climb up the bathroom step stool and I help her take her empty food bowl and milk cup, which still has milk in it. She stands up, tells me she has to wash her dishes, and tries to grab dishes from me. Sensing the stalling tactic and more water everywhere, I remove the small dish and ask her if she is all done milk. She says 'yes, and I'm going to pour my milk down the sink' and I say 'No. That's a waste of milk. If you are not going to drink the milk, I will have it.' and I drink the milk. She starts screaming and crying away. I cannot console her. She screams 'I wanted to drink the milk! I wanted to drink the milk! I wanted the milk.' over and over, unable to stop or catch her breath or listen to reason.
I give up trying to brush her teeth, pick her up, bring her into her room, and force her into a snuggling position in her reading chair. The screaming stops instantly as soon as I open our new Fire Station book that Steph and Paige just bought us, and she quietly snuggles in for stories and goes to sleep without any more troubles.
I spend the next 3 hours trying to catch up on all my work that I've neglected lately and prepare to go to sleep again without taking the time to stretch or listen to my hypnobabies CD that I'm supposed to listen to every night in order to prepare my for pushing this mean baby that hurts my back out of me.
Can't wait for Jason to get home on Sunday! He, by the way, spent a great evening at Disneyland. I sincerely hope he had an awesome time.
No comments:
Post a Comment