Focus

It's now been about a month of being a full time stay-at-home mom.  I'm still enjoying it for the most part, but I'm also starting to see things slide.  At first, I was thrilled to have the hour and a half afternoon nap time where I could get things done.  And I could get quite a few things done when I didn't have to stop to get someone a drink, or clean up a mess, or change a diaper every five minutes.  But slowly, that hour and a half has turned into me resting... or really, just being lazy.  And some days I need it; when the kids are extra fussy or I was up a lot through the night.  But it's becoming more of the norm rather than the exception.  My daily showers have become every other day, toys are starting to be shoved to the side in little piles instead of being put away.  My project list is getting longer rather than shorter.  I really need to learn to stay on track and not just allow myself to be lazy during my moments of peace and quiet.

However, that may not matter anymore, because it seems that my sweet 2 year old Keragan is done with naps.  Don't kids usually nap until age 4?!  Or at least 3?!?!  This week she has taken 1 out of 4 naps, and the other three afternoons she has laid in her bed singing at the top of her lungs.  I told her she had to stay in bed for an hour, so she did, but she made sure that I knew she was awake for all 60 minutes of it.  The problem is, by 6:00 she's an absolute bear... crying over everything, whining, and being mean to the littles.  I'm hoping it's just a temporary phase and next week she'll be back to sleeping 2 hours each afternoon...

Keragan... it's easy to focus on the babies.  They are more demanding, need more help, and frankly I have to report so much on them that I can't afford to NOT focus on them.  We've made an effort to spend time with just Keragan, but she's definitely starting to act out to get our attention.  The biggest thing we're dealing with is "MINE!"  Baby S is now mobile, so she's getting into all of Keragan's toys. And not just her baby toys, but whatever she's playing with at the moment.  It's gotten to the point where Keragan follows baby S around yelling, "No, MY ___" to everything that S touches.  We've had so many talks with her, put her in time out, read books about sharing, and even tried object lessons (us not sharing something with her), but nothing is working.  She's really struggling with not wanting to share, and it's probably more of a projection of not wanting to share us.  

She's a riot, though.  She still loves school, and loves friends.  When you ask her how her day was, she always responds, "Good, but friends go home" with a sad look on her face.  This week they learned about dinosaurs (her favorite) and she's always so excited to show me what she made.  Today she brought home a "waffle" (fossil) and showed it to me, Troy and the littles multiple times.  She also has a play egg from her kitchen that she's carrying around everywhere waiting for it to hatch.  

Back to focusing on the babies, baby J had a doctor's appointment this week.  Last month her head had grown significantly more than it should have, but they thought maybe it was mismeasured.  However, this month it had once again grown more, despite the multiple measures they completed.  So, Monday morning we have an appointment for a head ultrasound just to make sure that it's not anything serious.  So if you think about it, pray for her that everything is okay.