.oOo. May 2006 Mamas ~ I think it's time for a new thread! .oOo.

[ecoteat]

It hasn't been the dog days of summer, well, ever here in Maine, so let's start anew as I listen to the freezing rain of a nor'easter out my window.

I'm fighting off the headache that comes on day 18 of my cycle (stupid hormones...) so Phoebe is pretending she is sick, out of sympathy. She's pretty sweet.

[Marylizah]

Hi!

Ecoteat, to answer your nap questions-- since DS stopped napping, it takes him all of 5 minutes to fall asleep by 8:30 pm. Which means DH and I have an evening together!! Very exciting. Last night he woke up a couple of times, but overall when he doesn't nap he also doesn't wake up at night.

That said, I'll really miss naptime. But maybe I won't need as much of a nap if I'm getting some solid sleep at night!

Oh, and this was totally him. We had nothing to do with it. I think if Phoebe still wants and needs to sleep you should NOT mess with a good thing!

Re: MIL, lol, I haven't had to complain since I've missed more than half of their visit so far, with my trip to the States!! So I'm catching up now. What's bugging me right now: she seems to think that because I traveled I *will* get sick with either a cold or H1N1, so she's monitoring me every time I blow my nose. Seriously. When I blow my nose she tells me, "Uh-huh, I see you have a cold." WTF!!!??!?!?!???!??!! I guess a girl can't have a stuffy nose!! I'm seriously to the point where I hide in my bathroom to blow my nose.

She was very opposed to me going to the States while pg, seems she's determined I be "punished" for it... So sad to have such a negative view of life! Anyway, she's with BIL today so I have some freedom!!

And dontcha all just love my MIL stories?

[ecoteat]

Mary, I can't help it, but I am laughing out loud about your MIL thinking you're sick because you traveled. I remember having a constantly runny nose when I was pregnant, and it drove me CRAZY that people thought I had a cold.

[Mamabeakley]

I've been reassuring people I don;t have H1N1 all weekend because I have a terrible asthmatic cough right now . . .

Thanks for starting a new thread.

Eeek! I'm supposed to be having a phone meeting . . . BBL

[Sydnee]

Just bumping us up, how is everyone doing???

[ecoteat]

I am staying up WAY too late. Again. And I just remembered I have to wake up early to have time to take a shower before Phoebe gets up so we can go to my friends' new theater/classroom building to help set up for the open house before bringing Phoebe home, going to school, having a staff meeting, coming home, and finishing cleaning the house before MIL gets here tomorrow night. Ugh.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to bring up is whining about preschool. I really like Phoebe's preschool. I like the teacher a lot and there are some very sweet kids that go there. But there is one girl that is bullying Phoebe. It is killing me, and Phoebe's doesn't even seem to get it that this other girl is doing anything explicitly wrong most of the time. But sometimes there is no question. Over the course of the last year, she has pushed Phoebe in the snow, always controls who plays what when they "play babies" (Phoebe is ALWAYS the baby, and the other girl is always the mother), and it sounds like recently growling mean things at Phoebe when the teacher isn't in earshot and then telling her not to tell or cry. I've spoken to the teacher at length, and she completely understands the problem, but isn't quite sure how to handle it. She's never had a sneaky bully in her preschool before! I'm also concerned about the toys this girl and one other girl are bringing in--barbie coloring books, electronic toys, MAKE-UP?!?! The teacher realizes her rule of no toys from home other than a cuddly thing for nap time has completely gotten away from her. I don't want Phoebe to know what Barbies and make up are! Sydnee, have you ever had preschool bullies? How do you handle conflict between your kids? I guess I need to teach Phoebe the specific language for standing up for herself, which she is actually really good at, but I think she needs more support for dealing with this really controlling girl.

OK, I really need to get to sleep. I hope everyone is well and enjoying Halloween preparations and festivities! Between Phoebe and myself have 6 Halloween events to attend from Thursday to Saturday! I'm really looking forward to the fun weekend.

[Marylizah]

Ugh, Ecoteat, what a horrible situation.

Is the teacher going to reinstate/reinforce the "no outside toys" rule? That sounds like an important issue.

DS is dealing with some kids who are, uh, difficult at school. And we've taught him to yell when he gets hit or kicked (boys are a lot less subtle than girls!). Maybe if this girl starts growling things to Phoebe you can teach her to yell or say loudly "STOP THAT. I DON'T LIKE IT." It would at least draw the teacher's attention to the problem. We've been role-playing with Geo to help him find the courage to tell the mean kids to stop.

I wish I had better advice for you. Hopefully Sydnee has some good ideas.

And re: MIL: glad to make someone laugh! She left on Sunday and we all took a deep breath of relief. Including DS. She is SO intense and all over him all the time that by the end he was yelling at her, pushing her and hitting her. Not ok behavior, but totally understandable as far as I'm concerned! I've already started talking to DH about their return trip; they're scheduled to stay for TWO MONTHS. And that just isn't going to work.

Not much else is new, I'm almost through my 6th month of pregnancy (!!!!) and feeling pretty good. We have a Halloween party that we're going to in a bit, so I'd better get off MDC and get things organized.

Happy Halloween to all those who celebrate it!

[Sydnee]

ecoteat- Ohhhhh yes I have dealt with that!!!! First of all, I don't let kids bring in things from home (except a blanket, cuddly toy for quiet time). I was having kids bringing in Bratz dolls, and other things I wouldn't let MY kids play with. Second of all, I ALWAYS talked with the parents about their childs behavior. I did this every single day. We talked about how we can change the behavior, and when it finally got to be too much for me, I gave them two weeks for things to change or they would have to find other daycare. It did change, thankfully. I just let all my parents know from the beginning that I won't excpet that kind of behavior, I have too many kids to watch, and one child like that makes it difficult for everyone.

Personally, I believe that the teacher needs to take matters into her own hands and talk with the parents, if it doesn't change, then the parents need to find another school. I know that even our schools here won't put up with that behavior.

Good luck, it's so hard. We're actually dealing with Rachel being bullied by some older boys, and after talking with her teacher, they took matters into their own hands immediatley. I am hoping things will be better

Marylizah- 6th MONTH???!!!! Wowsers, I didn't realize you were that far along! Yay for having MIL visit be over with!!! What a relief that must be, hopefully you can figure out something with her next visit, lol!!

I was gone last Friday thru Sunday for a scrapbooking retreat, and it was WONDERFUL!!! The food was all premade (Lets Dish made all the food!) so we just had to pop it in the oven, sooo easy. I was able to get a ton of stuff done, and it was awesome just enjoying some adult conversation!!

I still haven't quite figured out the girls' costumes yet, ugh. Rachel wants to be Princess Leia from Star Wars, but I refuse to spend $42 for a costume. I am thinking of using a sheet, maybe?? Emma I *think* is going to borrow a costume from a friend, and Alayna wants to be a princess, easy enough

[Mamabeakley]

Hello, everyone!

We have a ninja, a skeleton, and a bunny rabbit around here! My May baby is the skeleton, which he says "tell-knit" - so cute!

I have my doula certification review call in 10 minutes - wish me luck!

[~*max*~]

Hi all. Happy November! I lost this thread somehow, but am glad to find it up and going strong!

Amy, that does sound like a tough preschool situation. It must be especially hard when you are a teacher yourself to be put in this role. i think Sydnee gave you some sound advice. It does sound like phoebe's teacher needs to take more control of the environment right now.

Mary, sounds like you are handling MIL with such a great attitiude! I give you so much credit. I'd be pulling my eyeballs out by now - lol! And 6 months along - that is so great. It seems like you are sailing through pregnancy. What are your birth plans?

Mamabeakley, too cute about the "tell-knit". Did you all have a fun halloween?

Sydnee, yay for you on the scrapbook retreat! I'm glad you had such a nice time.

All is well here. We have colds & viruses circulating through the house constanly it seems, but nothing major thankfully. We are not doing flu & h1n1 vaccines, and I think we are the only people I know IRL who are not. Our school clinic is not even being held until Dec., which seems like it will be a mute point by that time anyway since it is moving so fast around here. What have you all decided?

Our new pup is keeping us super busy. He is such a cute little guy, and totally loves the kids. He is growing at an alarming rate, and we think he is going to be much bigger than the 30 pound dog we were told about. (The rescue said they thought 30 pounds. Our vet said 50. We will see. His paws are huge! We are fine w/a big dog again. We just thought medium sized might be a little easier.)

Enjoy your Sunday everyone.

[alaskaberry]

This thing just deleted my *huge* post. Argh.

H1N1--we aren't getting it. Neither of the boys are in daycare or preschool so we're not doing it unless there's a huge epidemic up here. A few people in Fairbanks already died from it but they had "compromised immune systems" according to the newspaper.

Halloween--Orion was a railroad engineer, Tuck was an octopus.

Marylizah--wow, now I won't complain about *my* MIL. Yours sounds like a total nightmare. Next time she's over you should cough on her. Perhaps there's some way you could get them to stay somewhere else? Or what if you had *your* mother over at the same time MIL is visiting? Then you'd have back-up. Or a war-zone, depending...

Max--Oooh, what kind of puppy is he? Can I guess? is he an akita/mastiff or a great dane?

Sydnee--Glad to hear you got some time to yourself!

Mamab--good luck! Now how did you do?

Ecoteat--as someone who was bullied by a toxic friend for 10 years(from age 6), I have to go with Marylizah on the yelling thing--empowerment is a grand thing. I hope it works out well. You could have Phoebe practice first and then when she feels confident she can stick up to her "friend". Re the barbies & home toys, if you feel like your complaints are not being taken seriously, maybe it's time to switch preschools. Cause who knows what other "rules" are being overrun? (like tv or something)


Us: It finally snowed here. Yay! And it hasn't been colder than -10 yet. Hey, that's sweater weather! We're going to New England in a week and a half, though. Where everyone looks at you like you've just escaped Bellevue because you're barefoot on your porch at 30 degrees and you wear your pjs to the grocery store and think nothing of it... Oh Alaska. That is why I love you. You can buy 100 lbs of dog food and no one thinks you're storing up for the apocalypse.



Orion is still nursing! Anyone else still nursing their May 06 child? I am also having a real struggle getting him to potty learn. He refused to go in the outhouse all summer, and he also refuses to use the kid potty in the house. He wants to go to preschool really bad (one of his friends is going), so I told him "when you use the potty". Do you think that is bad? But he still refuses. argh. It's stressful. DP blames it on the nursing, if you can believe that! DP and I seem to get along better when he's on the North Slope and not criticizing my parenting/lifestyle/personality/etc. Drives me nuts.

On the upside, I am doing NaNoWriMo. That's it for me. Hopefully I will be able to get online again soon.

[~*max*~]

Hey Alaskaberry! Good to hear from you!!! Sounds like you all are doing well. I'm glad. As for the potty learning, LO just started to stay dry during the day. I had to finally "cold turkey" her & just take away the pull ups bc I knew she could do it (she stayed dry all the time when we were out & wet her pull up constantly when we were home). She is a big one for control issues. She is doing really well now & is very proud of herself. She still wears a pull up at night, but that is going soon too. Cool about the NaNoWriMo. What are you writing about this year? Oh, and we were told our pup is a "hound/terrier mix". Exactly what kind of hound is to be determined, but he seems to be a staffordshire terrier. He is just the most mellow sweet puppy going. He is taking to his training really well. What part of New England are you going to? Are you having a long visit?

What's everyone doing for Thanksgiving? Our will be pretty mellow, just us & the ILs I think. This year I am going to involve the kids more in the cooking, having each one prepare a dish to share. (The girls can wear their Little House on the Prairie bonnets & aprons - too cute.) And we will make our "Thankful Turkey", where the kids make a paper turkey and on each tail feather they write something they are thankful for. If the weather is nice we'll go for a morning hike, then off to the ILs. They live in the woods and have a nice cozy home w/fireplaces - a perfect setting.

[ecoteat]

Phoebe, it's good to hear from you! It is absolutely not bad to say Orion can't go to preschool until he uses the potty--most preschools wouldn't let a non-potty trained kid come anyway. That's silly that nursing is causing any potty issues. And to answer your question, as far as I know Orion is the last hold out of our bunch. Phoebe weaned on her third birthday.

The preschool sitation has improved substantially. Phoebe has only been there once since I posted about it, but that was a really good day. The teacher had been talking with the kids, especially the one troublesome girl, about being nice and sharing toys and all that for 2 days that Phoebe wasn't there. Then on Tuesday there were only three kids at school--Phoebe, the other girl, and another boy. The teacher was easily able to be right on top of everything and they all talked openly about playing well together. Phoebe seemed pretty happy about it all when I picked her up. She was supposed to go today, but she had a cough and goopy eye this morning, so I kept her home. The teacher also told all the parents that she needs to stick to the no toys policy. I know she is taking this seriously. I just think she didn't notice things creeping out of control until another mother and myself started noticing things and talking to her about it more.

As an aside, since I had to take the day off to be home with Phoebe, I had to throw together sub plans in a hurry. In Maine all 7th and 8th graders have laptops, so I put everything online for the kids, including a video of myself giving instructions and an online survey for the kids to complete their assignment that collected all their responses for me in one place. I was able to connect to the kids' computers from home and see their screens, so I was chatting with one student during class. It was pretty cool. If I get good at this I won't even have to show up!

Max, that sounds like a lovely Thanksgiving. Phoebe is still peeing at night too. She's been wearing Pull-ups at night for a year, and showing no signs of staying dry anytime soon, so I just bought some cloth nighttime trainers. I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner! They are SO soft and cozy velour--way nicer than paper and weird absorbant gels. It seemed like such an expense when I was looking at them a year ago, but I got 5 used for about the cost of 4 months of pullups. And I can resell them! The first night leaked a tiny bit, so I'm hoping tonight doesn't.

[Mamabeakley]

Hi, mamas,

My brain is FRIED. It's been a long week. DS1 has fairly mild asthma but it really flaired up last weekend with a cold and I feel like I've spent all week focused on dealing with it. Fortunately, steroids (yuck! and its in an alcohol base - double yuck!) seem to be really helping so he's not coughing until he throws up anymore. And of course he's been in a TERRIBLE mood - he's been just plain MEAN to DS2 all day, talk about bullying . . . I'm glad DH is home pretty early today.

DS2 learned to say his big brother's name "right" this week! It's so cute! There's an "f" in the middle of DS1's name and DS2 has never said it - but he started to this week

DD is growing and chewing on everything.

Let's see . . . we are not doing flu vaxes as we don't do very many vaxes at all. DS2 weaned at 2.75, while I was pg. because I didn't want to tandem again. I'm still not sure what we're doing for Thanksgiving. There are odd things going on in our families (not bad, just people shifting around in odd ways) and I'm not sure where it's going to turn out that we are. Amy, I'm very impressed by your remote teaching! Halloween would have been more fun without the rain we had, but was okay. We do a Samhain altar, the Great Pumpkin brings little gifts, and trick-or-treat - very eclectic The altar was more poignant this year because of the two great-grandfathers who died this spring/summer.

Oh, and my doula certification call went fine! I believe I am certified but I'm kind of waiting to get an actual piece of paper before celebrating.

[Blue Lotus]

We have been really busy here with working on the house and trying to figure out how to buy land and get out from under this one so we can build our own and homestead. Z is a crazy boy getting into everything and climbing all over. Are all boys reckless daredevils?? Oh, and he adores books...and shoes. He is finally starting to say a few words (Mama and Dada so far) and sign too (milk/nursing and "I want"). He started getting interested in sitting on the toilet in the last two months, but hasn't actually gone yet. C is a really sweet and funny kid who drives us crazy as usual. The girl really needs to take acting classes - she loves to dramatically replay events (like letting the chickens out of the coop in the morning).

Hi Alaskaberry! C is still nursing too (to go to sleep and when waking up), and shows no signs of stopping soon. I figure that chances are good that she and her little brother will wean at the same time. Since she is also fully PL'd I would say that potty training hs nothing to do with nursing! I think that the no going to preschool until he PL's makes a lot of sense. I'm afraid I don't have any ideas to encourage him, though.

Amy - The remote teaching sound way cool!

Mamabeakley - Congrats on your certification! Are you starting to take clients and teach classes again?

Thanksgiving - My sister is coming to visit, but we have no idea what we are doing yet. I'm sure we will figure it out soon, though!

[~*max*~]

Oh mamas, you aren't going to believe this. Now are new pup is sick. He has a high fever, sore joints, lethargy, wasn't eating. We brought him to the vet this am & they gave him abx, fluids & pain/inflamation meds. It looks like Lyme Disease, but he tested negative for it. So it appears to be some other puppy virus. I am so worried. I truly cannot lose another dog. I have had a migraine all day & totally can't function. To top it all off, we are supposed to visit family out of state (a plane trip away) Thurs. - Sun. so I don't know how we are going to leave the puppy if he's still sick. Our ILs will watch him, but it is still heart breaking. He is just laying in his crate w/the door open, refusing to come out, hot w/fever. I am so worried, for our puppy, for the kids to experience nother loss, for me & dh.

Thanks for reading. I just need to have a place to express this. I certainly can't talk about it at home in front of the kids.

[Marylizah]

Oh, Max, I'm so sorry. Your little puppy is in my thoughts. Sending him many healing vibes!!!

It's so hard when these little creatures are sick. Just surround him with love.

[~*max*~]

Thank you Mary. He is so much better today now that the abx have kicked in. I slept on the couch last night next to his crate & he woke up w/tail wagging today. Now he's eating his breakfast & his meds, so I think he is going to be OK. Phew! Of course I was still all emotional about our laSt dog passing & this just sent me over the edge. So when they say not to get a new pet right away, they may be onto something...

[Sydnee]

Oh Max, hugs and prayers for your family and the dog Our dog was just diagnosed with Lymes Disease a few weeks ago, we have her on meds also, hopefully that will help.

[Mamabeakley]

I am nursing and nursing and nursing a sick little girl . . . I think she's doing okay so far . . . but this is really stressful. 3mo DD has a lowgrade fever and a horrible sounding cough, and cries and cries whenever she has to wake up to get her diaper changed. Needless to say I am paying close attention and will take her in ASAP if it seems necessary . . . so far have just been sitting w/her all day. Fortunately, DS1 & DS2 were scheduled to spend the day at my ILs . . . unfortunately, I was supposed to be working . . . good thoughts & prayers welcome.