Month: October 2009

Life As I Know It

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I am really enjoying my life right now 🙂 Things are on the up. I figure it’s about time! I don’t mean to be a downer all the time but I’m still processing and dealing with a lot of the after math of my last year. Okay, back to my awesome, up-turning life.
I love my little girl. I know… I say that all the time. It gets a little repetitive but she is incredible! She amazes and delights me every day, every hour! Time is moving by so quickly and Livi is growing up way to fast! She is not a baby anymore. I try to play a “you’re my baby” game but she just giggles at me. She walks, runs, dances, and talks. She has begun saying two words together this week too! I guess that officially means she is saying sentences. She says “good girl” and “nice kitty.”
Livi has become very proficient at testing her boundaries. After being told not to hit the television screen, she will hit the plastic beside the screen. After telling her “no” again, she moves to the side of the television, then the speaker beside the TV… and so on. Because I know my daughter to be very wilful and at the same time very smart, we are slowly begining to institute time-outs. I know many of you mother are probably thinking I’m crazy and wasting my energy… but it seems to be working 🙂 The hitting is already starting to subside. We have been very careful with how we institute the time-outs and when. They only come in to effect when she is being overtly obstinate and hitting me repeatedly after she has been told not too. For the time out, we pick her up and move her to sit by the door, where we stand right beside her but turn around and count to 20. She will sometimes sit and cry but generally she sees something else that grabs her focus and tries to run to it. We do our best to keep her in the corner, than we pick her up say “no more hitting so-and-so” and give her kisses, hugs, and tell her we love her.
I know she is probably not understanding what the time-out is. It is more to give me an outlet for how to handle the situation but I think it is a good stepping stone for Livi too. I hope it will get her used to the idea and have it be more effective earlier.
I love this picture below. It is quite representative of her little tamtrums. I told her not to touch the pictures. She didn’t like being told “no”, so she cried and KEPT her hand there!
 
I love that Jon has got a new job! He is now officially and finally a Behavioural Interventionist working mostly with Autistic kids. He has been wanting to get in to this field for quite some time now. It is completely different from anything he has been doing in these past few years, but he does have experience with people with varying abilities and I think he is going to be awesome at it! It will be challenging but ptentially very rewarding… which is something I know he has been looking for. The position is a very small 8 hours a week but now that he has his foot in the door, he can apply for internal postings and there is some room for advancement! I’m really praying this works out and Jon can come home pumped and excited about his job instead of grumpy and tired like most days now.
Jon was on the computer and Livi was getting in the way apparently!
 
I love that life is starting to make some very good turns towards the positive. With Jon’s knew job, I think he will be feeling more confident and happy. Jon and I are continueing to communicate better, have more fun together and spend more family time together. We are talking about our future more and starting to make plans again and figure things out. I am delighting in Livi as much as I can and really enjoying being at home with her. I’m starting to slowly return to church and solidify and understand my theology more securely. I’m also begining to pursue some of the goals I have for myself. I like feeling hopeful 🙂
Livi was wearing a housecoat the other day…. 
we thought she just needed a pipe to complete the ensemble!
 

I Survived!

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Today, I babysat! I’ll be honest, I was a little terrified. I don’t know why I was so scared. Being left alone with five special needs adults, with varying degrees of abilities, would be no problem. Being left alone with two one year old’s sent my anxiety through the roof! I don’t think my fear was very reassuring for the parents who were leaving their precious child in my “capable” hands.

I think the anxiety started about ten months ago. I started trading babysitting with a friend for short periods of time when Livi was just 3 months old. I was not ready to be babysitting another child yet. I was still feeling out how to care for my own child. I did okay but I was always so stressed out when one child was upset, or when I couldn’t be everything to both children. Being three months apart the two babies were at such different stages developmentally and had very different temperaments. I would be exhausted after only a few hours of watching both babies. Babysitting trading only lasted for about four or five months because my friend started needing more regular care and for longer periods of time. I was reluctant to commit to anything because I was not handling it very well. Don’t worry, both children were very well cared for when I had them… it was just me that was having the problems.

Well, I tried a hand at babysitting again today. Not just for a few hours either. Jude came over for the whole day! I had to do a lot of self-talk last night, trying to convince myself that I could do it with out being stressed. I kept having to tell myself that they where both so much older now and developmentally very close. Jude and Livi are still three months apart but the developmental gap has decreased drastically. They played so well together, aside from Livi hitting Jude’s head a few times trying to get my attention (I think there was some jealousy happening) and Jude pulling Livi’s hair in frustration.

My day consisted of me sitting on the floor supervising while Jude and Livi played with each other and climbed over me periodically. It was a lot of fun! There were no major melt downs. Just a few crocodile tears here and there. It went better than I hoped for! They even had an hour nap at the same time which meant I got to nap! How great is that?! Now that I know I can do it, even have fun babysitting, I will be a lot more confident to say yes to babysitting in the future… maybe even go out in to public with two kids?!

Sorry, no pictures. I did think of it but I didn’t want to push my luck by moving my focus on to anything but them 🙂