Back home

I've come to the realization that I will not be able to blog as often as I once did.  There's just not enough time.  We are back in SC.  We just survived our first week on our own with the kids.  My mom came back with us to help us get things in order and back to a routine.  We are both so grateful she was able to come.  It was a great help!  While she was here I introduced my mom to Trader Joe's--she really liked it and took back bags of treats with her.  :)

Gavin is back at school and he had a major welcome.  Everyone was so happy to see him and he was ecstatic to see his friends again.  The principal told me his reunion with Macie was epic-- like a movie.  I'm not sure that his feelings are reciprocated but he continues to tell us "I love her so much."  My mom was happy she got to see his school and meet all his friends.  It's a good little group and they do make you feel like family.

I did the school registration for both boys for next school year.  The plan (as of right now--there's a lot of things that can change) is to have Liam go to school on T/R mornings and Gavin will go to the same school for TK (transitional Kinder) Monday-Friday mornings!!!  I'm still in SHOCK that Gavin will be in school for 5 days a week- they are still 1/2 days but still-- I was not mentally ready for that.  Gavin was moved up a "grade" and will join the Transitional Kinder class which is for 5 year olds who missed the public school year birthday deadline and have to wait a year to enroll is Kindergarden OR kids who are 5 but whose parents believe are not emotionally ready for public school yet .  Nick and I were not sure about whether it would be good to have Gavin be in that group but the principal and his teacher assure me that he does better with older kids so we'll try it.

I'm back at work.  I'm teaching one class on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Nick has been amazing. Not only did he teach my courses for the past couple of weeks but he is keeping my 10am class a little longer so I don't have to be away from Ellie an entire day at a time.  Otherwise, I would have to leave home at 8:30am and not be back until 5:45pm.  That's a long time for one of us to be alone with all three kids.  We're not ready for that yet.  At this time, I have all 3 on Tuesdays and Thursdays which are Nick's long days (he leaves at 6:30am before the kids wake up and comes home around 3pm) but it's not as bad because those are also the days when Gavin goes to school.  Liam naps as soon as we come back from dropping off Gavin so I really only have all 3 a few hours in the morning.  This week went really well.  There were mornings when I was super tired and thought of drinking coffee--which I really don't want to start drinking--but once awake I was able to push through.  We just need to be better about going to bed at a better time.

The boys are doing well.  It always takes us a while to "detox" back into our routine--food wise and discipline wise.  I must say that some things just fell back into place such as Gavin is back to feeding himself at the table and not requesting to be fed.  It's still not perfect all the time but meal times have improved quite a bit.  He gets distracted easily at the table and tries to do everything but eat sometimes but he's been much better about taking bites as we remind him.  Yesterday he even helped me cook the meal.  I figured that would also help and make him want to eat the food faster.

Liam is no longer picky or any trouble during meal times.  It's amazing the transformation he's gone through.  He is now a little bottomless barrel and will constantly eat if we let him.  He will go to the pantry and say "snack" throughout the day when he's hungry and gets super excited when we give him the snack.  He particularly loves pretzel sticks, even better with peanut butter to dip in.  He even tried crackers with hummus and he eats all of whatever is offered.  It seems his list of foods he WON'T eat is very short now.  The only definite foods he will not eat are cantaloupes, honeydew, or papaya.  He had tried shrimp before and would not eat it but he has now eaten it a couple of times so that's off the list.   I no longer worry about him eating.  At his 18 month check up, he weighed 24.5 lbs which I was told was the 25th percentile but he was at the 90th percentile for height.  I figured it was the other way around because he does not look thin at all to me.  Most of his 18month sized pants do not button so he's on to 24 months or 2T even--they fit good around the waist but are too long.  I have a feeling he will need "husky" size later on.  :)

The one thing that we are struggling with is discipline with Gavin.  He is craving attention and does not like sharing us with his siblings.  He asks us to not do things with Liam.  He's been acting quite defiant and mean towards us and Liam.  He respects Ellie though.  Our usual antics have not been working (e.g. taking toys away).  Just a few days ago, Nick took his beloved cars away and Gavin told me he did not care because he would play with other toys and pretend they were cars.  Earlier in the week Nick and I felt defeated. We were both losing our patience quickly and felt like we had no good strategies to deal with the situations.  I was talking myself out of spanking because I know it won't resolve anything and it will lead to more problems but in the moment, Gavin would push me to the point where I couldn't think of anything else to do.  Although I never did spank him I was starting to threaten him with violence and that's just as bad.  I was going to the dark place and I don't want any of that in our house.  Listening and following rules has been the issue so we asked his teacher how Gavin was doing at school and she said he's doing great.  He follows all the rules and instructions at school so that puts it back on us.  We need to change something.

Nick and I have done a lot of thinking and we've come up with a few strategies to go about this from now on.  I've realized that having a strong tone doesn't work with Gavin anymore.  Sometimes it is best to say nothing at all, walk away and ignore since his motive seems to be our reaction/attention.  He gets super upset in any situation when he doesn't have any control/power so we're trying to be better about always giving choices and letting him make decisions (or let him think he is).  I've also come to the realization that I have been focusing way too much on the negative--always saying "don't do that"--rather than focusing on the behavior that we want to see, giving positive remarks when he is behaving well and doing nice things for us or Liam.  I watched a couple of Supernanny episodes and one of the episodes was perfect for us right now and her suggestions were right on par with what we had already discussed so hopefully we can get ourselves on track and have a balanced household again. So far yesterday and today have gone well.

Next on the to-do list are Valentine day crafts/activities, plan Gavin's 4th birthday party coming up in 3 weeks and Ellie's 2 month wellness check-up.