Today is raining so that doesn't help. Dropped off the child at preschool and for the first time he actually cried when I left. Cried .. with tears. He's been going through a bad period lately of not listening and I spend 99% of my time with him asking him the same thing 1000 times until he screams back a "Yes" or "No" or telling him not to do something, 1000 times, until i have to drag him or stop him or whatever. It's been sort of a bad 2 weeks after a really really good 2 weeks. It's probably because I'm so tired lately and have been spending less time with him. He's been spending a lot of time with his dad which is great. They're getting along better now than ever. But I think that's why he was so upset with me leaving this morning .. I considered just taking him back home but I don't think that would be a good thing for either of us right now. He would continue to get in trouble the whole day, I'll scold him constantly and then I'll lose it and cry the whole afternoon because I'm just that hormonal of a mess.
I'm also tired of reading parenting books .. they're worthless for kids this age. Your 3 year old is going to go through this sort of crap no matter how much you spank him or yell at him or ignore him or show him attention. They just do. There's no one way to deal with a misbehaving 3 year old .. that's why so few of them actually behave and that's why parents with 3 year olds tend to not do a lot of social things: they're saving themselves the headache of going through this shit in unfamiliar spaces where they don't have control of the situation. That's also why there are a million opinions on how to "raise" or "discipline" or "guide" a 3 year old and none of them work for a majority of people. That's also why there are an infinite number of books on the subject, all of them completely worthless. Period. This is also why the idea of a "nuclear family" is idiotic from most perspectives. Kids need a variety of adults and kids of other ages to learn (good and bad) things from .. at different stages and throughout various short spurts they relate to different personalities better and loading 100% of that on two individuals (parents) who are already very alike (most likely why they're together, right?) is bad for the kids and bad for the parents. Now, I will not subject my "nuclear family" to psychologically abusive grandparents (mine) or overzealous religious and repressed grandparents (hubby's). I won't subject my kids to that and I can't personally deal with that sort of behavior. I often wonder if we should have even had kids given how screwed up our families are. I guess I just assumed that people just raised kids as a couple and that's that. I'm starting to believe that's unhealthy.
Tomorrow is my due date. It was this past sunday based on the ultrasound but tomorrow is the calendar date. The first time I was just over a week early but this time around I haven't made any progress .. well, other than baby has been at +1 station for over a week now. If you don't know what that means it's the position of the baby in the birth canal .. they start at -5 and at +5 their heads are ready to emerge. So +1 means a lot of grinding of his head on my pelvis, aka not very comfortable. Other than that, as far as I know, no effacement or dilatation. Going to get checked again tomorrow but I'm sort of pessimistic for some reason. It makes it hard to feel like giving birth to a second baby when you feel like you're a shitty mother to your first. I hate these hormones!!!
There's a bunch of other stuff going on. Like our best friends who have been planning on being around to babysit while I'm in labor letting me know 5 days in advance they will be gone for 4 days starting the day after I'm due. Haven't lost my trust in someone that fast ever. I'm still so upset I don't even really want to talk about it yet.
It is true, I don't think there's any way to avoid "the three year old stage"...other than to just let it pass! Every now & then Logan will say something/do something that reminds me of how he was every day last year and I'm like - wow, I am so glad that stage is over! You are going to love the 4 year old stage, I am sure of it, simply because they are so much more mature! At times it's sad because I can't see the toddler in Logan AT ALL anymore but most of the time it's so nice to see who he's become that it makes up for it. You're a good mom, no matter how you may feel sometimes, so I know Gregory is going to be just fine!
ReplyDeleteThat is so upsetting as far as your friends and the babysitting situation! Eek! :( What are you going to do now? I hope that today you find out you made some progress!!!