Week two

Was a bit better. Well, not on the illness front - Atti has a virus, and a cough. So for four nights he woke ever hour or two. Which of course means so did I. And even less sleep was awesome for us both. Not.

But I did manage to get in the office all three days. Thanks mostly to my father in law, who rescued me on Wednesday (although as my boss didn't come in, could have worked at home anyway) by coming and taking Atti for the morning and taking him to the doctor.

So he didn't get to daycare much, and it was MISERABLE taking him on Monday. I loathe those mornings when it is all sobs and you have to walk away listening to your child sob for you. I mean, I know that two minutes after I have gone he is likely fine, and playing with his friends. But I was way happier about leaving him on those kinds of mornings when his carer B was there.

I have made an appointment to see the new daycare she has moved to. Not sure that is not stalker-ish behaviour. It is actually based around a perfectly logical reasoning - if he does Kindy at a daycare I can have a reasonable work week and maybe get my degree finished. Finally.

So today my neighbour (only for few weeks more, what will I do?) sat down and looked me in the eye and said 'so with this gentle parenting and this slow parenting stuff, like what is the end game? What are you wanting the outcomes to be? Cause I don't really understand how you can spend the whole day at home because he won't brush his teeth and put on shoes and leave the house'.

I was a bit stunned actually. But then I was glad. I should spend some time thinking about what I want to achieve with all this effort. Mostly it fits in the kind of parent I want to be. I don't want to be shouting at my kid (and have my kid shouting at me). I get frustrated, but I mostly assume it is me who is buggering up the situation, not the three year old. I kind of figure his motives and drivers are pretty straight-forward.

I am hoping that you end up with a kid that is fairly self-disciplined. I am trying to use an approach where he learns that his actions have consequence, and that he has choices and agency. I have plenty of boundaries (more now that I am home to deal with it all more) and today we had quite a bit of consequence happening. So firstly, we were intending to go to R's school assembly, then to the park, library, op-shop and pick up some shopping before coming home. And we were going to make gingerbread ... well not men cause I haven't a biscuit cutter in that shape. Gingerbread somethings.

None of that happened. He kept stuffing around with his mouth with teeth brushing. And he wouldn't put on shoes. So, we didn't go out. Not was there any tv. It actually went much better than I was expecting - the no tv part. He played with puzzles, got out his scissors and practiced cutting, we set up a drawing station and cleared a space for him to put all the puzzles, and he helped me with vacuuming. I managed to have some reasonably healthy food on hand, and it was pretty good. Definitely not perfect, there was a fair bit of grumping, and one strange thing.

Last week my german co-worker told me about a drama with her little girl. Exact same age. She had tried to get her to clean up a mess she made and threatened to chuck her toys in the bin if she didn't clean it up. Much to her amazement, her daughter went and got all her barbies and cheerfully chucked them in the bin. Then she basically put most of her other toys in a bag to go to the option (actually I got given most of it). I was stunned, we just figured her kid was less attached to toys than to her will.

But today Atti did it too. While playing with his kitchen he had chucked almost everything on the floor, and after asking him to clean it up I got frustrated and said 'if I am the one to pick it up it will all go to another kid'. He then got a bag and basically packed it all in the bag himself, and I was saying 'just put it all back in the kitchen and it doesn't have to go' but he was all 'chuck it away'. 

I learned something here - be careful what you threaten. Most of that stuff was gifts from other people for xmas. Now what am I supposed to do? I am going to offer a friend with two daughters who has just returned from overseas a loan of it for a month or so. 

He also got out his trains for the first time in months. So that was good. It was, overall a pretty good day actually. He didn't eat any pizza (what is that, he loved it. Now he will only eat garlic bread) and he wet the bed for the first time ever (uber nap, whoops) but overall, it was a pretty good day. It included me getting LOTS of sorting and cleaning of my lounge room done, and Atti vacuuming up all the rice he spilled (mostly) by himself. Took forever, due to him constantly turning the hose on himself and laughing hysterically. Wish videos would actually load on this site, his laugh was brilliant.