So this is my life....

Well, here’s a real update on my life for a change. Brace yourself, it’s long and a lot to read.

Where to start, where to start…. I guess, with Chloe… So our oldest daughter started pre-school - I understand now what people say when they’re constantly telling you about your children “They grow up so fast!” It feels like just yesterday Chloe was born and we were adjusting to being new parents… and it was all so overwhelming and I remember crying in the rocking chair while holding her a week after her birth, and thinking to myself I would never have any more children because I just couldn’t handle it. (Yes, I had a little trouble adjusting to being a Mom at first.) But here we are, 3 years later, and with 2 kids now, and I haven’t completely lost my sanity… yet. :) It is so hard sometimes - parenting a 3 year old and 1 1/2 year old, that I am completely & utterly amazed at how parents of multiples do it. I am still intrigued and in love with the show “Jon and Kate Plus 8” on TLC because Kate and I are so similar. She loses her patience with her husband as often as I do (haha) and just watching that show encourages me that I’m not alone in the everyday frustrations that parenting brings. So, back to the topic of Chloe… she has went to pre-school twice this week and each time, after leaving the Church, we end up dealing with a cranky, whiny and upset child… tantrums come on incredibly easily and for what seems like the silliest reasons… and it has us puzzled… It’s as if she is on her best behavior while at school but then when it’s time to re-adjust to home life, she can’t handle it and goes nuts. But when I started to really think about it, I realized she’s been having these out of control “tantrums” more often lately and it made me wonder why… So I asked my sister, I asked my aunt, all who deal with children in a school setting on a daily basis, and I got some good advice. It starts with something called “Sensory Integration Disorder” otherwise known as “Sensory Processing Disorder.” After the brief research I’ve done, I decided most people have this disorder to a certain degree and I know that Chloe has it because of the seemingly unexplainable behavior she exhibits at times, which Chris and I refer to as an “out of control tantrum.” It’s not that she’s misbehaving, it’s that her body is having trouble dealing with certain sensory things in her environment. I am glad to know this and to know that my child is not just out of control & misbehaving at times for no reason. Some of the things that might bother her & send her into hysterics are: a tag on her shirt rubbing her skin a certain way, after jumping off the swing on the swingset, the swing keeps moving (she yells at me “Mommy, make it stop! Make it stop!”), doing something in a different order than usual like buckling her seatbelt wrong, transitioning from one activity to the next… and others. There is a massive checklist you can look over, by going to this website:
http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-processing-disorder-checklist.html
You will realize that we ALL have sensory issues - we may just think we’re picky eaters or are annoyed by bright lights or whatever… but really there is an underlying cause to it all. It’s quite intriguing and it gives me hope, in dealing with Chloe, because I know there are techniques we can practice that will help her better deal with these situations that can send her into hysterics. (We just have to learn them.) My next step is to write down all the situations that set her off, like I started to do a few sentences ago, and then when we visit our pediatrician in 2 weeks, I am going to take this list with me and talk to the Dr. about it. I don’t think Chloe has sensory issues to the degree that she will need to see an Occupational Therapist on a regular basis, but I think we may have to visit a specialist of some sort just to have her clearly evaluated and for us to learn how to help her. For the most part, Chloe is a typical, smart, loving 3 year old, but when these “tantrums” come about, it becomes clear it’s not just a ‘normal tantrum’ and it just upsets Chris and I and we end up yelling at her to stop and sending her to a “time out.” But now I know this is not effective and I am eager to learn how to help her. Explaining all this to Chris is going to be a whole other story, though! So that is life with Chloe, in a nutshell… (a rather large nutshell, I guess!) haha.

As for life with Maya - she is doing well. However she’s picking up on sisters tantrums and throws them just as often! Whenever she doesn’t get her way, she’s laying on the floor screaming. This happens a lot, as she wants to play with things and get into things she shouldn’t have, A LOT. She drags her stool all over the house, which adds a few extra feet to her height, which means she can easily open the kitchen drawers and see what’s inside & reach everything on the countertop and really get into trouble. Yes, there’s never a dull moment at our house. As for her eating, she is still really picky and not a good eater.. (great, more sensory issues!?) and she is addicted to drinking milk in a bottle, still. You may suggest we just start giving it to her in a sippy cup or just stop giving her so much milk to drink, so she’ll get hungry enough to want to eat other foods - but it doesn’t work. She throws such an out of control tantrum if you don’t give her a bottle of milk, that there’s no way she could calm down enough to eat food instead of drink. The only way we can get her to eat is if we give her things to play with that aren’t toys and that intrigue her so much that she’s so distracted she easily opens her mouth to be fed while playing with such things. Sometimes I empty out the kitchen utensil drawer and put the contents on the highchair tray and she plays with all sorts of things while I quickly shovel food in her mouth (knowing in a matter of minutes these objects won’t intrigue her anymore!)

So now you know why I say parenting is so difficult. I have to be the most creative person ever to get my 1 1/2 year old to eat and I have to make sure I pour the right amount of milk in the right bowl, with the right spoon, and the right amount of cereal, to get my 3 year old to eat. Life is a lot of work with these 2 little ones! No wonder my brain is fried by 10:00 each night and all I want to do is fall into bed.

So when I’m not dealing with my children, I’m dealing with my husband. When you expend so much energy trying to raise & nurture your children, you don’t have much energy left to make your marriage as wonderful as it could be. Chris is sooo stressed to the max with his workload that he is easily irritable and that makes being his wife hard and it makes parenting hard. Now you know our kids are a challenge and the last thing he needs when he comes home from a LONG day at work, is his kids throwing tantrums and needing everything done just the right way (and he usually doesn’t know what that “right” way is - only Mommy does - UGH!) So we end up at odds with each other. Instead of being a team and parenting together, we end up fighting and arguing over how to do things, and in turn yelling at the kids. (Yes, sometimes I feel like quite the failure as a mother & wife.)

But I think I know just why our marriage and family life is the way it is (not up to par.) Two reasons:
1) God isn’t first in our lives (our priorities are all wrong.)
2) Chris’ company takes up too much of his time.

The first one is seemingly easy - we need to pray. We need to ask for God’s help & guidance on a daily basis. We need to seek him constantly. We need to pray together, especially when the girls are tucked in bed and there are no distractions. We need to trust God together. When we get our lives on track and re-asses our priorities, I think number 2 will quickly be solved. Chris will understand that life isn’t about money and working 24/7 to make all his customers happy. He will learn to have faith in God and will hire someone to help him run his business (whether or not it is me). When he does this, he will not be carrying the burden of running 2 business all alone, and his stress level will diminish tremendously and he will not be strung out at the end of each work day, but will want to play with his children in the evening & on the weekends, and just spend time with his family.

So it sounds like I’ve got it all figured out. If it were only as easy as I’ve made it sound. Just pray. The hard part is, I have to be the determined one, the dedicated one, the one to initiate us growing closer to God. So before I can be that person, I have to pray myself and ask God to help me... because Satan doesn’t want us growing closer to God and to one another, and He doesn’t want our marriage to be happier and parenting to be easier… so he is going to throw every stumbling block in our paths, such as making us feel ‘too tired’ to pray or ‘too busy’ to talk to God. Oh Lord, help us!

Well, I guess I should end this entry here since I’ve really written a lot... I can’t tell you how much typing all this out is like therapy to me, though. If you have any words of encouragement for me or any thoughts, feel free to e-mail me.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend...