I can't believe it has been a month since I've posted. I've started multiple posts, but can't finish them. Turtle is on a napping strike, and has been for quite a while now. In addition, he's just having a lot of strong-willed behavioral issues. I'm not calling them problems, but they are definitely challenges for me, and I've been spending what free time I have, aside from cleaning and cooking and the usual stuff, in researching child development and discipline and parenting and trying to figure out where I stand. And I think I sort of know where I stand now, and so I'm trying to figure out how to translate that into how I should act.
Basically, I'm all for "Positive Parenting", which involves mutual respect, setting firm limits and enforcing them without actual punishment, and recognizing that acting out is normal and trying to handle it without losing my cool. It hasn't been going that well. It's a work in progress, and I've found that the longer I go without a break, the harder it is to find, as my friend said, the "presence of mind". I got a bit of a break today, because I left at dinnertime for a parenting class, and tomorrow I get to go to the dentist and out to lunch with my old work friends, so I'm super excited.
My husband's cousin is here, visiting from Italy for a few months, which has been great, and I've been using any extra time I can eke out while she's on toddler-duty to clean. I've been catching up, and it feels nice. In addition to exploring parenting styles, I've also been looking at preschools, making (and constantly changing) career plans, finally getting some stuff up on the walls of our house, starting a bilingual play group, starting to make a list of sewing projects I want to do since I'm going to buy a machine on Friday (I hope!), baking bread (yay! one of my great joys!), doing a lot of from-scratch cooking again, and just about everything except exercising, which I still need to find a way to squeeze in. But since I'm catching up, I hope that will get on my to-do list really soon. I need it!
We've also been doing a bit of skiing, which I admit has been nice, but I'm so out of shape that cross country has been a bit sad. Soon, soon.
Lots more I could say, but I should try to get to bed before midnight one of these days. So ciao a tutti!
Figuring out your parenting philosophy is challenging. I hope that your reading and your parenting classes offer you some insights into what will work for you and your wee ones.
ReplyDeleteIt is challenging when there isn't a break... something that I know I didn't really understand fully until I was put in the situation.
Hang in there!