I think I am going to need an exorcism. I have decided to blog in order to avoid listening completely to Ardyn screaming at me from her room, where she is demanding that I come back and get her right this minute because she has now decided to be good. *sigh*
I am not sure what exactly has gotten into these two. It's been a couple of weeks now that I have just been beside myself with what the two of them have going on in their heads. Someone always seems to be having a bad day, and more often than not, it's both of them. I decided tonight that I can't do anything productive with them and because they were injuring each other, myself, themselves, and everything in their paths, and had not taken naps despite my even laying down WITH them in my bed for two hours with soothing music..... that it might just be the best to put them to bed. Marek wasn't even in there 10 minutes and he was OUT. Ardyn however started long howling sobs about how she's going to listen and do everything I say and NEVER touch Marek EvER EVER EVER Again. She also mentioned that she is starving and that if I don't get her out of bed to feed her that she will die in there all alone. Ah. Drama.
Last night I actually had a conversation after MOPS with Evan about how I am having a hell of a time getting them OUT the door in the morning. Neither of them are listening to anything. Unless I am physically holding them down to put on boots and coat and hat, nothing happens. Ardyn is perfectly capable of getting her boots AND hat AND coat on herself, but because she is constantly so worried about what Marek is doing, where Marek is going, and who is going to be the leader out of the house and who is bringing snack to school and who is blah blah blah blah blah..... that we never get ANYWHERE. Every time I pause to help her, he is undressing himself or in a different room entirely or just doing something plain annoying. I am just tired of fighting. Ardyn was doing so well with being responsible for getting her boots and coat on, or at least in her possession if she needed help, but now she is backtracking badly. Her issue is purely a LISTENING one. I have to admit that I am wondering if this really is just an extremely independent and strong willed 3 year old or if she is exhibiting some signs of ADD. I think what I really need is some one on one time with her, but no one seems to want to take either of them for any extended period of time these days.
I am proud that we made it through this day without spanking her at all (she almost never gets spanked, but it has happened before, I don't mean to make it sound like she gets spanked every day, quite the contrary...) but at the same time, discussions that seemed to get through to her were completely by the wayside an hour later. She has really escalated this screaming and jumping fit that she has every time she wants something that she can't have or something does not go as she wants it to. I have seen this in kids that are just older than her, and watched them go through this phase and see them occasionally still exhibit it, but to watch her do this sometimes 5-8 times and hour is just EXHAUSTING.
I am starting to wonder if I need to be more structured when it comes to playtime at home. Is just letting them imagine and run around playing with each other as they choose a bad thing? I think I see them forming excellent relationships with each other and also really being imaginative and elaborate in their play, but I also see that when it comes to structured time they don't do very well with anyone telling them what to do. Today she got in time out twice at school, the first time for constantly interrupting the teacher and circle time (which I can completely see) and another mom told me that she swung out at the teacher when she was put in time out. The second time she was put in time out for actually PUSHING her other teacher when they tried to redirect her. We have discussed till we are blue in the face today about how it is not polite to push anyone and it is disrespectful to push a teacher or hit them. She was refusing to nap or sleep until we wrote a "sorry note" to her teacher for her behavior, but I was trying to get her to understand that this was not going to get her out of nap. I told her that it was an excellent idea and that tomorrow we can do that together, and that we have all weekend to think about what she wants to say if we have to postpone it. Her new thing is to act terribly and then when she gets in trouble just say "I'm going to be good now" over and over and hysterically OR announce that she wants presents (referring to being good for Santa) in order to try to prevent herself from going to time out. At this time I am thinking that I might need to research other options for her instead of time out, and maybe even start diligently using the chore chart that gives red X's for bad behavior with small tasks as consequences. Or is alllll this just because she is three? I just don't want to underestimate this and have it blow way out of proportion because I wasn't firm enough with her about her behavior.
Despite the issues at school we went to see Santa afterwards. I thought it might help for her to actually see him and tell him if she had been good.... but that Santa was too darn nice. Maybe I should have let her pee on him or something. But of course she had a jumping up and down issue ON the "santa stage" and another before we even left the mall. Actually, two more before we left the mall. Then we got lunch and they both passed out for short snoozes on the way home.
All of this makes me feel like the worst mother, because they are stressing me and making me scream at them because eventually I guess my brain has tried all angles and I can't figure out how else to get them to Listen. I decided putting them to bed was the best thing I could do at this point. The more Ardyn started being hysterical I told her that she would have to rest and that she could wake up tomorrow and start all over again, and behave and show me that she wants to be a good girl. We will see. I am not holding my breath.
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