Tantrums and how to respond

An amazing article I just read: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/lauren_lindsey_porter2.html
If you have kids, please take the time to read it through.

I have been having a bit of a rough time with Nyla lately. She has starting throwing what seems like hourly tantrums. I mean every little thing that doesn't go her way, she needs to throw herself on the ground, turn red, and scream at the top of her lungs.

I used to be pretty good at remaining calm throughout them, but lately have found myself loosing it more and more easily. I mean, I'm not being abusive by any means, I just havn't been handling stuff the way I would like to. I end up either walking away and leaving her to finish it out on her own(while sometimes having my own mini tantrum in another room, lol), or yelling her name out in frustration. In the end, what I'm doing is making things worse, and I always feel really bad, and end up apologizing to her afterwards. This isn't good enough for me. She deserves more respect than that. I don't want to be on that constant loop, of oh well, if I screw up, I'll just apologize later.

That article really resonated with me, and I'm going to try to be more like the Mom I want to be.

The neighbour

I am working night shift this weekend, so Darryl took Nyla over to the park to give me some peace and quiet in the house. While he was over there one of our neighbours' little girls was there, and she just loves Nyla, so the two of them had a blast and played for about 2-3 hrs. The girl is probably about 8yrs old, if I had to guess.

So later on we just about finished dinner when I heard a knock at the door. I went to go get it, and it was the girl. She wanted to know if Nyla could come out to play, lol. I told her we were in the middle of dinner, and it wasn't a good time right now, not to mention she's too little to come outside by herself. She didn't really take the hint, and continued on making conversation. A little bit later, Darryl and Nyla came over to talk to her too, at the door, with the door open, and air conditioner running.

Somehow she managed to invite herself in, and was playing with Nyla. I was in a bit of a rush, getting ready for work, and didnt really have any patience at the moment. I really wasn't thrilled that she didn't listen the first time I said not a good time right now. I was desparatly trying to think of a way to get her to leave, without being rude. Finally I asked her if her Mom knew she was here. No, of course not, "yes a way out", I thought! So I told her I don't think her Mom would like it if she was in our house(basically strangers, we don't know them well beyond saying hi when crossing paths), and that she should go. Well, she comes back with, "Ok, I'll be right back, I'll go ask her if I can". Ugh, I think to myself, "Ok, I'm an adult, I can tell her to get out of my house, in a polite way". So I tell her, "No, its really not a good time right now, I think you should go home, or to the park, or wherever it is you're supposed to be". She turned around, and stormed out. I hope she wasn't crying.

Oh well. I'm sure this will be the first of many kids I will have to stand my ground with. Ugh, sometimes being an adult is hard.

Aurora Borealis

I am a member of an online community called thebabywearer.com. It's an awesome forum of Moms coming together to help with parenting advice, sharing of arts and crafts, venting about problems, sharing in the joys of life, and basically any sort of support you might need. It's great for getting an outside perspective on life. Nothing is quite the same as feeling like you're completely alone on an issue, only to find out many many people across the world share your opinion.

Most important of all we are coming together to share our love for keeping our babies close, ie babywearing. I've always found the term babywearing kind of weird to use, but eh oh well. There is a sub-forum there to buy/sell/trade babycarriers, and other used baby items. It can get kinda crazy. I love it though, and have gotten a couple of pretty good deals there myself.

Because this is such an awesome community of Moms, there is ocassionally Moms out there who send their baby carriers out on tour across the world. This gives people the chance to try things out that they may never be able to otherwise. I am so lucky to be able to participate in one of these instances. I have a baby carrier right now, that is a Didymos Chiara, which has been dyed a one of kind dye job using non-toxic dyes. It is so pretty. I wish I could keep it, but atleast I get to try it out for week. The Mom who is sending across Canada, and the US also included a little journal for us to write in, or have our kids draw in, or whatever we feel like. She will be saving this journal, along with the wrap to pass onto her daughter when she has kids. We are also supposed to upload pictures to the site to share what we did with the wrap while it is visiting. Its pretty cool to see it go from one Mom to the next, and get to see some scenery from across north america.

I've only had it 2 days, but here's some pics so far:

This is the morning we got it, I unraveled it, and Nyla instantly wanted to give it some hugs(ignore the laundry in the background, lol).

We had to try it out of course.

And then she had to wrap her baby up

Playing with her BCK's(which is what she call's her ABC's), handsfree, but still holding her baby, lol.

I'm planning on going for a hike in the Rouge Valley later this week, to show off some of the gorgeous scenery Canada has to offer. Not too sure where else to go. I don't think the crack heads of Oshawa have much to offer, lol.