Saturday, August 28, 2010

Daily Five- August 26 & 27th, 2010

Daily Five- August 26, 2010

1. Good night's rest

2. Cuddle time in the morning

3. Spend the day at Happy Hollow with the kids

4. Able to vacuum and mop the floors

5. Faith going to bed without a fight, it was probably because it was so late.


Daily Five- August 27, 2010

1. Another good night's rest

2. Faith's hilarious comment today: "Look at my teeny boobies, when I grow bigger, they will grow bigger too." I don't know where she comes up with this stuff, but it's so funny

3. Had a chance to work at Faith preschool and send the time with one of the other parent and child who are great friends of ours. The girls but on a great puppet show about horses today. Also, I finally finished my job.

4. Spending the afternoon shopping with husband. We spent way too much on retail therapy, but it was so much fun. Of course, most of it was for Faith. I couldn't resist. Gap and Old Navy had huge sales and then another 30% off with the friends and family coupon. Also gave us a great opportunity to work out some of our issues lately. I need to work harder on showing him that he is appreciated!

5. Able to have some quiet time to take care of some work I had to caught up on.


Can you tell which daily fives I write the day of and which ones I'm recalling from memory?

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Daily Fives-August 22,2010 thru August 25, 2010

Daily Fives-August 22, 2010
(Sunday)

1. My grandma's yummy spring rolls. She doesn't make it often, but it's totally worth the wait. I was close to my own record of 10 rolls. These rolls were pretty big so even though I had 7, I 'm going to count it as 10

2. Faith's first time miniature golfing. She had so much fun! Daddy even own a free game.

3. 2 hour nap

4. Crunchy fried noodles

5. Buying groceries to make the yummy cabbage salad.

Chinese Cabbage Salad

1 med. head cabbage
4 stalks green onions, slivered
2 pksg "nissen" Ramen (crushed)
4 Tbsp chopped almonds
4 Tbsp sesame seeds

Dressing:
1/4 C salad oil
1/4 C sesame oil
4 Tbsp sugar
6 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp accent

"accent" means Ajinomoto which means MSG! I don't usually use it...I substitute 1/2 tsp white pepper. It doesn't seem to make much difference.

Add Ramen to salad and dressing just before serving.



Daily Fives-August 23, 2010

1. Thank you Uncle Loi for coming over and playing with Faith so I can rest

2. Wii Fit, Thanks Nancy, this is my exercise now, I know, it's sad

3. Yummy Sweet Tomatoes. We love this place!

4. Playing at the park in the dark. Love summer nights.

5. Getting to sleep by myself


Daily Fives-August 24, 2010

1. Faith sleeping through the night with daddy

2. Wonderful cuddle time with Faith this morning. I love our cuddle time.

3. Had a good physical therapist appointment. He did some tractions on my neck and relieved some of the neck pain

4. Great bike ride with Faith and daddy

5. Got to finally make the yummy cabbage salad. Thanks, Tania!



Daily Fives-August 25, 2010

1. Got to see my therapist today. It's always great to talk it out with her. She helps me not take everything and myself too seriously. She also gives me great ideas.

2. Able to get some work done at Faith's preschool today. It was nice to have the school to ourselves. Faith and I enjoy the peace and quiet.

3. Was able to get some relief from this crazy heat at one of our friends house.

4. Finally did a Costco run

5. Got to spend quality time at the park with Faith. Love summer nights. We were playing in the dark.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Daily Five-August 21, 2010

Daily Five-August 21, 2010

1. Went to my amazing acupuncturist and he was able to get rid my migrane.

2. Having quiet time after my appointment with my Jamba Juice waiting for Faith and husband to pick me up.

3. Celebrating a baby shower with a couple from high school. They are the last couple in our high school group of friends to have a baby. They are going to be great parents.

4. Was able to have quality adult conversation.

5. Spent some quality time with husband,

Friday, August 20, 2010

Our Charts

We created a few charts the last two days. I've been meaning to do a fancy one with actual photographs of her doing all these actions, but have never found the time to do it. So, finally this morning, I just drew it by hand. I'll have to post the pictures once I download them.

We make a Mommy Wellness Chart to encourage her to sleep with daddy and let me sleep on my own so I can get some quality rest. I drew a picture of myself and told her I was only at about 40% and so I highlighted 40% of my body in green highlight. I told her that each time that I'm get a great night sleep on my own, we can color in a strip of my picture. When I'm completely green and at 100%, then I can sleep with her again. She was really excited to color a portion of it this morning.

The next chart was a Morning Chart. It's everything that she has to do get herself ready for the day. We brainstormed all the task and then I drew boxes in the different colors of the rainbow for each task. I also numbered all boxes in order, drew an illustration, and wrote the description. 1. Go Potty 2. Wash face and hands 3. Brush Teeth 4. Change Clothes 5. Eat Breakfast

Our last chart was a Bedtime Chart. 1. Take a bath 2. Drink milk 3. Take vitamins 4. Brush and Floss Teeth 5. Bedtime Stories 6. Go to sleep

We'll see how helpful these charts are going to be.

Daily Five= August 20, 2010

Daily Five- August 20, 2010

1. Looking forward to Faith's future plans. "I'm going to go eat breakfast, grow up, and then go work for daddy so I can make money and he doesn't have to work."

2. Had a wonderful day out with Faith at Great America. I was finally able to catch the Snoopy on Ice show. It was so cute, she fell asleep in the car ride home and when I carried her into the house, she woke up briefly to ask, "Wasn't that show great?" Then she fell back asleep.

3. Got to have a secret date with the husband to watch "Eat Pray Love." The book was a lot better, but it was still great to spend time together.

4. Woke up in bed all by myself. Faith slept with daddy last night. Poor daddy didn't sleep was well as I did, but we're hoping it will get better.

5. Have dinner at my favorite restaurant and had my favorite noodle soup.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Daily Five- August 19, 2010

Daily Five for August 19, 2010

1. Hoping our new idea for Faith to sleep with daddy will work so that I can finally get a good night's rest. We told her that daddy is the best monster/ghost buster in town and that all the monsters and ghost are afraid of him. That means daddy is the best sleeping companion. We also drew her a mommy wellness chart. I told her I was at 40% right now and I need to get my rest so that I can be 100% again and then she can sleep with me again. We made sure not to blame her for me not sleeping well and it was more that I get easily woken up by any sounds someone else makes or even when I roll over and bump her. Crossing our fingers this will work tonight.

2. Uncle L. coming over and spending the whole day with Faith so that I can go to my doctor appointment.

3. My mother in law making dinner tonight. It was delicious!

4. Spending quality time reading to Faith today.

5. Looking forward to my date with husband tomorrow. We're planning on seeing "Eat, Pray, Love." I'm so excited! I loved the book.

Daiy Five- August 18, 2010

I'm going to finally start my daily five. My friends been listing her daily five on her Facebook page and I thought it's such a great idea, but have never got around to it. I think the right time is the present. I really need to be more positive and focus on my daily gratitude.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
1. Got to spend time with my best friend and her daughter. My best friend finally finished medical school and has a break this summer before she starts her job. It's been great to be able to hang out with each other so much. Her daughter is four months younger than Faith so it's great for the girls to see each other as well.

2. Had a good time at the mall. Got to eat Auntie Anne's pretzel, drink Jamba Juice, and even got two cute shirts for Faith at GAP.

3. Didn't have to cook dinner. We had plenty of leftover from Monday and Tuesday night. My mom also made her yummy vegeterian soup.

4. Actually made blueberry muffin from scratch. I know, I actually baked. Faith loves to help. She did a great job measuring, adding, and mixing all the ingredients. I thought it tasted good, but I think it's a little too healthy for the little girl. She likes the out of the box receipe.

5. Love the Wii Fit. Found a new game that I'm obssessed with. It was also a great workout. I was really sweating today.

Great Parenting Tips, especially for Terrible Threes

From Taking the Lid off the Sun, Alexis had a great post called, "The Quirky Crystal Child – Ten parenting tips I’m learning the hard way"

It's the perfect post for the kind of week I've been having. The Terrible Threes SUCKS! What is going on with my well mannered, matured, delightful child? Faith's tantrums this week has been ridiculous. It's so bad on Monday, that my best friend even had nightmares all night that her darling daughter is going to turn into this scary three year old monster in 4 months. My best friend has never seen Faith act like this.

We were at Happy Hollow and Faith insisted in taking the seat belt off for herself on one of the rides. I am usually very good about giving her time to figure things out on her own. This time, I knew she wouldn't be able to do it because it was even hard for me when I first tried it. While she was screaming, I did step back for a second for her to try, but saw that she couldn't do it and had to intervene. I know this part shouldn't matter, but it did, we were the last person still on the ride and there was a line waiting to get on. I'm generally very aware of my environment and didn't want people waiting on us. I told Faith it was too difficult and I had to do it for her. And that was it.......screaming and kicking and yelling...and there was nothing I can say or do to calm her down. I can't remember now how I finally got her to calm down, but afterward, she was so stubborn that she requested to go home and not go on anymore rides.

That night we had a discussion about her tantrums and she told me that she "would have done it if only you gave me a couple more minutes." I asked her if I usually let her do things on her own that I know she is capable of doing and she answered yes. I told her I did it this time because it was just too difficult for her. Then she referred back to similar situation, "remember when M and I did it ourselves last time." This last time was a few months ago and it was on a similar ride at Gilroy Gardens. I had to remind her that it was a different situation and for her to remember that I did let her do it last time because I knew she would be able to do it. Anyways, we came up with a compromise that I would give her a few minutes uninterrupted time for her to try it on her own and then I would have to do it for her. I know, I will appreciate this independence and self assertion when she is older. I love that she has such self confidence that she thinks she can do it all, but it's the tantrums of either not being able to do it or not letting me help her that is driving me crazy.

There was another tantrum at the mall today because the sales lady told her the high heel shoes were too big for her and that she can hurt herself. I saw it coming this time, but I wasn't able to prevent it. I had to get in her face today and talked her down. I asked if she was embarrassed by the sale lady and that seem to stop her in her tracks. I then told her that she needs to ask to have a private conversation with me and we can work out a solution versus her just going crazy. I then explained to her that she might think she can walk in those shoes, but they really are too big for her and the sales lady just didn't want to see her get hurt. I asked her, if she would like, she can try it on again, but she would have to hold on to me if she wanted to walk in them. She agreed to my conditions and that seemed to work. Thank goodness.

I'm not good at handling tantrums because I get so easily riled up by her and it's so hard for me to get myself calm, let alone trying to calm her down. I found these great tips on Alexis' site and you can read the full description on her post.

Here's the 10 tips:
1 Get rhythm
Generally, I'm really good about this one, but there's always room for improvement.
2 Balance brain chemistry
We got to work on this one. Both she and her daddy are sugar addicts.
3 Meditate
I have to do this more.
4 Clean your own (energetic) messes
This one is a tough one for me. I know Faith picks up my negative energy.
5 Accentuate the positive
I think I'm going to use this blog for my daily gratitude journal.
6 Establish routines and predictability
I need help with this one. I personally get so bored with routines. I'm more of a "let's see what I'm in the mood for" kind of person.
7 Use leverage
I love her terminology for this one. We use leverage a lot.
8 Assign chores
Thank goodness Faith loves to help out. She can work on the cleaning up her toys chores, but otherwise she is such a great helper.
9 Stay neutral
Another tough one for me.
10 Have a sense of humor
Thank goodness for daddy. He has a great sense of humor and it's contagious. She's actually really funny too. I try too as well.

I'm going to work on these tips and see what happens.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Need to get back on Track

I'm blogging again, you know what that means, we've had a rough month. The good thing this time is that I am aware of most of the catalyst for it:

1. Traveling- We went to Lake Tahoe with five other families. It was a great trip, but I'm sure it was overwhelming being surrounded by so many people all the time. The great thing was that Faith was very self-aware the whole trip and would carve out quiet time for herself in our room. When it got to noisy or she just needed a break from everyone, she simply asked to have "quiet time" in her room. We brought her V-Reader, with the Toy Story Game, her Toy Story figures, her Magna Tiles, and of course, TEDDY! Can you guess what her obsession is at the moment? It's been non stop Toy Story everything since we got to watch the sneak preview of Toy Story 3 at Pixar. Thanks again, Uncle Sean!
After the four day weekend trip to Tahoe, we had two days break before we were off to Kauai for a wedding. Generally, she loves travel and is a great traveler, however, she caught a bug on our last day in Tahoe, and had a fever that didn't break until the morning we woke up for Hawaii. That meant a rough start to our Hawaiian vacation. The time difference in Hawaii didn't help our already extremely late bed time. She didn't sleep until 10pm Hawaiian time, which is 1am our time. We're still trying to adjust back. It's been almost a month now. Last night she went to be at 11:30pm, sounds late, huh? But, that's progress for us.

2. Illness- Like I mentioned in number 1, she got sick. It's never pleasant when Faith is sick. She has difficulties falling asleep and then staying asleep. Generally when she is sick we have to drive her to put her to bed. She is so uncomfortable that there is nothing we can do to settle her down. Music doesn't work. She doesn't like to be touch, let alone caress when she trying to sleep. Having daddy walk her around on his shoulder doesn't work anymore. She would wake up constantly throughout the night because she can't breathe. All the interrupted sleep disrupts our schedule so she and I are sleeping throughout the day.

3. Bye Bye Binky- Probably not a smart move on our part, but the opportunity arise and we had to run with it. Trust me, I've been very tempted to return it her. So, we've been preparing her for months that the Binky Fairy is going to come soon and that she is going to take away all of Faith's binkies and in return give her a cool present. Yup, we have to bribe our daughter. Things like loosing them, giving them to the babies, or cutting the binkie (making it ineffective) doesn't work on our child because she will just tell you to go to the store and purchase more. We walked her through the whole process with the Binky Fairy and told her that the Binky Fairy thought she was ready since she is a big girl now. We told her stories about our experiences with the Binky Fairy. We even practice how the process when work. She pretended to suck on her binky, the Binky Fairy comes takes the binky, and then gives her a gift. We played this game every day for many weeks. We always told her that she had some say over when she was ready. We wanted her to feel like she has some control over the situation. She also got to request a specific gift from the Binky Fairy. Faith wanted a Lotso Huggin Bear. It smells like Strawberries and he has all these expressions when you press his hands, feet, and tummy. It was in the closet and ready whenever she was ready. Needless to say, she never felt she was ready and became more possessive with the binky and even stressed that it would be taken away at any moment. We almost gave up the idea of taking it away because apparently she wasn't ready. Until it all just happened, we were on the plane on our way home from Hawaii. For some reason, she only had the one in her mouth because I packed the rest in our suitcases when already boarded the plane. My intentions were to take them out and put them in my purse, but in the process of getting everything to the airport, I forgot. At the airport she had a lollipop, I got these yummy organic lollipop in Hawaii that was so good, and some how lost the one and only binky. We didn't realize this until the plane was about to take off. I wanted her to suck on it so her ears wouldn't pop. Oh crap, where is it? It's going to be a long flight, so we thought, but of course, once again she surprised us. She cried for the first ten minutes or so, I was seriously sweating. I thought it was going to be like this the whole flight. I offered her gum for the first time because I really didn't want her ears to pop. I'm sure with the current situation, that would just send her over the top. The gum did help because it was a new and cool experience. She was definitely a big girl now, chewing gum. The rest of the flight was pleasant and she didn't think about it until we landed. The opportunity arise, so we had to take it right? We told her the Binky Fairy thought she was ready and that the Binky Fairy would pick up all her binkies in Hawaii and bring Faith her gift when we got home. It was an hour drive from the airport back to our house. Faith was really excited to see Lotso, I even got it on film. However, like everything else with her, it only worked for a day. The following day, she told me to take Lotso away and sell him because she "hates" him and didn't want the Binky Fairy to take her binky yet. Surprisingly, she never asked the Binky Fairy to bring back her binky. Going to bed, staying asleep, and naps have been rough without the binky. It's partially our fault, we've cheated and been driving her a lot to help her sleep. So, it's natural for her to think that it's the only way she can settle herself down. We had to break this habit because we can't drive her every night. Needless to say, it's been a rough month, but I think we're making very small daily progress.

4. Mommy's stress, anxiety,and pain. Faith picks up on my moods very easily. I guess it's not too hard, because I'm not very good at hiding it. This vicious cycle happens every time there is a prolonged period of sleep deprivation. I do not do well when I am sleep deprived!!! I'm moody, depressed, tired, unpleasant, and the list goes on. Faith doesn't sleep well, causing me to not sleeping, causing stress, causing her to stress from my stress, which causes her not to sleep well. I don't think I've slept more than 4 straight uninterrupted hours for the past few months. The lack of sleep is creating a lot of anxiety and not allowing my body to replenish itself and ultimately making me more sensitive to my neck, shoulder, and back pain. I've also had at least 2 headaches/migraine weekly. This discomfort makes it hard for me to get to sleep and stay asleep. This is why I'm up writing this post. Woke up again around 4am. When I'm up, she doesn't sleep soundly, she senses when I'm away and wakes up calling for me. She also picks up on the tension when we're sleep and is restless. We've tried getting her out of our room again only so I can sleep better because I can't make myself comfortable when I try to lay still as not to wake her. This stillness makes me uncomfortable which ends up waking her. I've also had a lot going on this summer. I haven't given her the attention she needs and wants. There's always a change in behavior when this happens. She has been more defiant, aggressive, and whiny because of it.

Okay, so enough of that....What are we going to do about all this?
1. STOP THE CYCLE! Since, she is the kid and I'm the adult that can more easily make changes, it will start with ME! I will carve out more time for her. I will minimize, if not eliminate the stresses. I need to workout and do my exercises so my neck can heal. Thank you, Larry for all your help, sorry, I'm a terrible patient. Self care, thinking of trying out Reiki massage. Need to make another appointment with my therapist to get perspective. Need to return to my mommy group with Mika for support.

2. Increase Faith's activity. We're going to start preschool again next month so I think that will help a lot. She needs more structure that I'm not providing at the moment. I'm also thinking of signing her up for Ballet and swimming classes.

3. Improve our diet. I went thorough our kitchen last week and throw away most of the junk food. We need to be more conscientious in what we purchase. I'm sure her diet is not helping with her sensitivity. I'm too embarrassed to even mention all the crap she eats. That will change. It already is starting to change.

4. Continue to research more strategies. I've found two new great blogs for Highly Sensitive Children, Raising a Sensitive Child and Taking the Lid of the Sun. There are some great information on it. I'm still not completely comfortable with the "Indigo" and "Crystal" terminology and some of my ideas are a little new to me, but I'm staying open to it. Also, there is no room for judging, this is someones experience and all they are doing is sharing. It's up to you what you want to take away from it. This link is also great with practical parenting strategies on the Family Education website.