God is Right

My life is sneaky and likes to pull the rug out from under my feet without warning. Such an instance occurred when after only 3 weeks at my new job, I was called into the managers office and laid off, because I can't go full-time in the future- never mind the fact that I disclosed this fact clearly in my first and second interviews. For quite some time now, the answer to my prayers concerning my employment has been that I need to stay home entirely. Yet I continued to accept jobs knowing that I wasn't supposed to, then abruptly got pushed back home. After this last push, I decided to quit fighting it. Not unlike my teenage days, defying my mothers wisdom only to later discover she was right, I tested Heavenly Father's wisdom and I am now accepting the simple truth that God is right.

As angry as I am for getting laid off... again... still no fault of my own, I realize how much better things are at home when I can dedicate all of my energy to my family instead of splitting it with a job. I know most people can handle working part-time and keeping up on motherly duties, but I am a very low energy person. Even working 4 hours a day takes so much out of me that by the time I get home all I can think about is taking a nap and simple chores like keeping the house clean and getting meals on the table become overwhelming arduous tasks. In retrospect, I don't think I could have made it through the past few months if I had been working and this is why...

I have been home since sometime January, at which time Keira learned to climb out of her crib. Little did I know how much this discovery would affect our lives. She used to be an awesome sleeper. I could put her in her crib for a nap every day at 1 and she would take a solid 2 hour nap. Then bedtime has always been at 10 and I could lay her down and she would go to sleep without protest and sleep until about 8:30. The moment she learned she could escape her crib, she was out of there every 30 seconds. As much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to get her a toddler bed so she wouldn't get hurt climbing out of her crib. I found a perfect bed on craigslist for 20 bucks and painted it black then assembled it in her room. Ever since, there is nothing I can do to keep her in bed. No amount of Super Nanny tactics, threats, rewards, spankings, or routine can make her go to sleep and stay in bed. Not only that, but she has forsaken her 2 hour afternoon nap that used to ensure my sanity throughout the day. But when she goes to sleep earlier around 8, she wakes up 2 hours later and wants to be up til like 1 am. This has been going on for THREE MONTHS now. I'm seriously losing it. The day she learned she could get out of bed any time she wanted opened up an opportunity in her mind that a girl with her level of hyperactivity and determination cannot ignore.

I have since determined that motherhood is just a sugar-coated term for a WAR that you cannot win. Keira is hands down the most strong-willed human being I have ever come in contact with. As sweet natured as she can be, you can't make her do anything she doesn't want to. I have to declare war with her every time I brush her teeth and every time I put her to bed. And as I stated before, no punishment works on her. Spankings don't phase her and she doesn't understand the concept of rewards for good behavior or if you take something away from her for bad behavior. It makes no difference to her. If it's not her idea, it's just not going to happen without a huge fight. It seems bedtime is going to be quite an obstacle at least until she is old enough to work some persuasion on. I just can't figure out how a girl so obstinate can be so sweet and polite at the same time.

In February I took our pediatrician's advice to get Keira re-potty trained after a 5 month relapse. He said she should be able to hold her pee for an appropriate amount of time (2-3 hours) instead of the 20 minutes she was holding it last time we potty trained her in August. We used the all-panties-day-and-night method that he suggested and It has been going better than we expected. She rarely has a full-on accident, always poops in the potty, but it seems she gets a spot of pee on every pair of underwear I put on her and she still has to pee every hour or so. She's also waking up once or twice a night to pee. I'm not sure if she's waking up to pee or peeing because she's been waking up. On a side note, I devised an ingenious method to pee-proof Keira's car seat... puppy training pads. They are thin, absorbent, waterproof, and cheap. One accident in her car seat was enough for me. I'm never going through that mess again!

In an attempt to maintain my sanity whilst at home constantly exposed to such tumultuous circumstances as a two year old can bring, I have spent a significant amount of time crafting starting with painting Keira's big girl bed. I've crocheted something like 8 scarves, a baby afghan, 10 ponytail holders, and 7 sets of hair clips. When I sufficiently tortured my ulnar nerve, I decided to do some scrapbooking then completed my wedding photo album and a belated brag book for Keira's baby pictures. Most recently, I drew a new picture of Keira like the one I did of her at 5 months old. Aren't I productive when I'm not working?

The last noteworthy event was that my siblings and I finally got together with my mom for a family picture. My mom has been after one for a long time and miraculously we found a Saturday that all of us could make it. We gathered at Woodward park and snapped a few pictures with a tripod and Kyle's camera. They came out pretty good, but I didn't realize that Arthur was wearing his sunglasses until it was too late. I don't know how he managed to pull that off. I'm still trying to forgive him for that. Otherwise, I think the pictures are as good as you can get for a group that size, especially with the addition of a terrible two year old and two dogs.