A brand new mum!

I admit I am guilty.

Guilty of loosing my patience and yelling at my dear child after he's ( fill in the blank) or (fill in blank 2). Suffice to say I've yelled at my baby more often than I would have liked.

I have noticed that the effectiveness of my yelling at him has decreased so much so that he no longer reacts unless if I raise my voice louder than I had previously. This creates a huge problem for me because unlike a speaker I cannot tune my voice up or down with the turn of a switch and even speakers have a noise limit. Something must be changed.

I was thus inspired to 'quit' yelling, cold turkey because I was just sick of the current method of parenting and I felt that R and I both deserved better. An article from Parenting (Taiwan) gave me the necessary motivation to change. It is about how 400 days of no yelling changed the relationship of not only a mother and her child but also her relationship with herself. Here are a few points that age mentions which, I have to say, she makes a darn convincing argument!

1) You can sleep better at night without the guilt of today's yelling episodes on the back if your mind and the sound of your child screaming back 'I hate you mum' ringing in your ears.

2) You should always remember that your children are your most important audience ( not the strangers on the bus or in the supermarket). What they think of you is the most important so remember that next time a vein snaps.

3) Children are people too, it's unreasonable to expect them to always do the right thing or to follow your orders. How would we feel if every time we made a mistake somebody yelled at us?

4) You can't control your child's actions, but you can control your own. Even adults can't always follow directions down to a tee so why should we force our children to? Rather than yell until your voice breaks why not go to another room and give yourself a time out before trying another way of communication?

5) Screaming senselessly is only, well senseless, plus the child probably has no idea what you are going on about anyway.

6) Don't pass on any opportunity for bonding. Even if your child should be in bed but is instead next to you they could just be wanting to give their mummy a hug or a kiss good night! Yelling 'why aren't you in bed' not only deprives you of a affectionate moment but also leaves the child hurt and heart broken.

7) Make good use of 'at least..,' and 'luckily...' in those moments of accidents and other incidents, like 'oh he dropped the milk carton! Oh well at least it wasn't glass!'

8) Most of the time the problem isn't even the child, it could be you! Maybe you need a time out? A well deserved spa or massage? Get someone to babysit so u can have some me time and your child gets a happy mummy instead of a grumpy mummy.

9) Remember that everything is within your control, you are the adult and you are your child's best teacher on how to control their emotions!

Ouch! Teething!

Baby boy sprouted 6 teeth in the last 40 days, that's an average of one per 6.8 days! His four canines and the two upper teeth have all revealed themselves and thus bringing with them the dreaded teething pains and irritations.

I read somewhere that the canine teeth were the most painful ones of all the teeth and for the past month I really do feel like I've been dealing with a unbelievably fussy child. He wasn't always very fussy there were the treasured few days here and there when (I'm guessing) the teeth stopped growing that he would turn into an absolute angel, smiling happy all day long before turning back into the little devil the next day as though to give his worn out mum a much needed time out.

Signs to look out for when teething are the obvious swollen gums, irritability, sometimes the child will refuse to eat due to painful guns (R was fine but he would reject foods that were too hard or chewy), a little bit of runny poo and especially in the case of canine teeth the child will most likely be touching their cheeks a lot.

Some people say children will run a low grade fever when teething but I personally have never found that with R.

I used a teething gel from when R first started teething to help sooth his gums and I found it definitely helped, especially at night to make sure he didn't wake up multiple times from the pain and assured him and us a restful night.

Also extra hugs and kisses are definitely essential in making the teething period more tolerable.

Arghhhh I'm so tired

So tired that my whole body is in shut down mode yet my mind keeps reminding me of the list of chores undone... Baby's laundry, dirty dishes, tomorrow's meal preparations, own laundry, sweep the floor, look alive, conceal those dark panda eyes, become more positive, love my life...

It is hard to always be happy and positive about everything. It's especially hard to suppress those fantasies of returning to those days when life was only about doing things that made me happy, shopping, eating out, catching up with friends, reading in the afternoon before falling asleep and taking a lovely afternoon nap, walking out of the house with a small bag, wearing earrings.

I am definitely having one of those moments where I'm wondering about the what ifs.

As another hectic day draws to an end I struggle to put into perspective the purpose of my life, the decisions that I've made and the consequences of each of my actions.

I love my child. Unconditionally and unequivocally. But I also love myself. Without a doubt. Because loving my child sometimes limits myself from loving me, I must often take a step back and reexamine my life and what I need to do to improve the current status quo.

Today, I have decided to let the laundry wait.

Leave the dishes in the sink.

Buy take out for the next few days.

Book a massage for tomorrow and ask my husband to babysit.

Go to bed at 10pm.

Perhaps the last two can help me finish off the last few items on my to do list.

End of the day

Sometimes I get this weird feeling like...Really? I'm a mum!? As though the last two years passed without any recollections and suddenly there is a beautiful little child laying next to me.

I look at this child as though it is the first time I've laid eyes on him and I sigh, not because I am sad, but because I am happy. Because I cannot imagine life without him anymore. However hard the obstacles ahead for both of us (and daddy) we will go through it together and my life however busy stressful or tiring will be worth it because I know that everyday, at the end of the day, like today, I will be able to look upon this him as if it were the first day, and say to myself 'well done'.

Guilt

Everytime I 'fight' with R I always find myself loving him even more (if that is even possible) after.

Our arguments range from why he should brush his teeth, to why he must eat his dinner to why mummy will only read 3 books before bed and not ALL of the books etc

Just your typical mother - son interactions.

What amazes me every time is how R always manages to make me feel like the most important person on the planet to him even though I might have just broken his heart a little.

Tears are usually followed by hugs and more hugs then smiles and a few more hugs. Which is also the reason why I feel exactly like the biggest meanie after our fights and why I know for a fact that R is definitely a bigger person than I am every single time.

Perhaps this is his gift to me - the lesson that if you love someone, regardless of what has happened between the two of you, there is nothing a hug and a smile won't fix.

Thank you my sweet.

A toothy problem

Every time after one of my sons teeth pops out, I always go through an enormous guilt trip and over compensate him by buying him one (or thirty) new toys.

This might sound like a really strange ritual, but let me explain.

In all honesty my son is not perfect, he has a bit of a hot headed temper (which I take complete responsibility for), and he has a tendency to scream on the top of his voice if he doesn't get what he wants. All these are the toddler norm (I presume) and in general he's a really happy guy who enjoy socializing and playing and eating (especially the latter).

However, in the last week I have lost it with his temperaments on more than a couple of occasions. This has made me question my abilities of being a parent, and reasoned with myself whether or not he really is the devil reincarnated (seriously).

This is of course until I touch the little bit of hardness poking out of his gums that I realize...ahhhhh he was teething!

The thing with teething is that you don't really know it is what it is until the tooth surfaces itself. After all the child cannot say or express himself, we can only guess, perhaps it was this or that. This mixed with our own doubts of our parenting skills creates a very stressful time for both the parent and the child.

I guess after all this, the lesson that should be learned is, no matter what happens remember to be calm, because even though the child cannot control his emotions we as adults cannot loose our heads and do something we might regret and make a difficult situation even worse.

Keep Calm
And
Take a deep breath

Will be my mantra from now on

Namaste

So mad!

This is a stupid question:

Are there times when the baby you love and adore so much made you so angry you could literally chew off your own arm?

Well I had such moment today.

Thankfully my limbs are still in place (and so are the baby's limbs) but man I was mad! Trying to put him down for a nap and he just kept either pinching my face, making skin farts on my belly, his arm, my neck then the back of his hand, stand up and then sitting back down forcefully, jumping on the bed, making random sounds with his hand(s) on his mouth, pulling my hair and generally acting like a monkey more than a baby!!

I basically had to ignore him and turn my back to him to let him know how mad I was and there was definitely a bit of a screaming match between us before he fell peacefully to sleep (some 60 minutes later).

Argh...