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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Am I the Only Mom Who Thinks Time Changes Suck?

Years ago, I used to love "falling back."  What was not to love about it?  You got an extra hour of sleep!  You got an extra hour in your weekend (it almost felt like a vacation)!  And for a short period of time, waking up in the morning didn't feel absolutely painful.

Now "falling back" and "springing forward" suck.  I wish the government would pick a time and stay with it.  As many of you know, adjusting young kids to a new time change is not for the faint-at-heart.  This year "falling back" seems to have been particularly painful in our family.  We were not only battling the time change but our soon-to-be three year old son simultaneously decided now is the time he wants to start getting out of his bed at night and in the morning.

For two entire years (not exaggerating), we have had the absolutely perfect sleeper in our family.  Not once have we gotten up with him in the middle of the night since he was 8 months old.  He didn't make a single peep ever.  He didn't attempt to get out of his toddler bed.  He was perfect.  Amazing, right?  Well, he's done with that.  Now he has discovered he can get out of bed and boy is he interested in all the fun that can come with that.

So once we "fell back," it meant our son was awake at 6 AM and be-bopping out of bed to go wake up his sister.  His sister, as I've mentioned many times before, needs sleep more than anything in life to maintain her emotional stability (and hence mom and dad's sanity).  This of course, led to sleep deprivation for both kids, which led to a downward spiral of behavior and thus, the chaos began.

Once our daughter becomes sleep deprived, she struggles with controlling her anxiety.  That means every time she feels slightly out of control, slightly wronged, or slightly unheard, her anger is level goes sky high.  She hasn't had a serious meltdown in months.  This past week, we've had 3.  I mean the kind where no one in the house can talk, because nothing can be heard except for her.  Anxiety and sleep deprivation cause her to wake in the night, so thus, she started waking us up every night.  That, of course, leads to sleep deprivation of mom and dad...which is never good.  Patience goes down the drain when mom and dad are tired.

Our son isn't significantly better.  After all, he's two.  So in the past two weeks, we have had a meltdown every morning, because either we won't give him the entire box of _____ (cereal, pancakes, etc.) or we won't let him use the adult scissors to cut ______.   And his normal, "No. I do want that" statements have turned into "NOOOOOOOOOO.  I DOOOOOOO WANT THAAAAAAT!!!!!!!"

Oh it's been a joy to be in our house.  What I can say is this isn't our first rodeo with time changes and yes, we know this too shall pass.  The benefit of it getting dark earlier is our kids willingly go to bed earlier and gradually they are sleeping later and gradually, peace will be restored.  But man, I just wish Congress (by that I mean the men who probably had wives who dealt with this) could experience a time change with young kids just once and I'm sure they would clearly vote to just pick a time and stick with it!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

My Top Tips for Making the Holidays Easy and Pain Free

Once you get married and have kids and especially if you also host the holidays, the holidays get stressful fast.  Whether it's balancing the families and in-laws or dealing with hosting while also caring for small children or just choosing between all of the events and parties, it can really take the fun out of the holidays.  So over the years, I have cultivated a holiday routine that simplifies my life, because heaven knows, the holidays are full-time mom.  Dad's contribution is the Christmas lights and then, he considers his job done (but to his credit, he does do a bang-up job).  Sorry, I digressed.  But the key here is creating a routine you can repeat each year.  Starting from scratch every year will make the holidays more overwhelming than they need to be.

Here are my tips:

1.  Outsource the meals - Seriously, if you have little kids, there is no joy in spending days cooking a meal for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Everyone is miserable during the cooking process and the kids certainly don't appreciate it.  So...don't do it.  Lots of grocery stores (like Whole Foods) and restaurants sell ready-made fantastic Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.  They don't cost that much more than if you made it yourself, and you will also save yourself that painful shopping trip the week of the holiday with other 3 million holiday shoppers.  Do not feel guilty.  Don't let your in-laws make you feel guilty.  If they do, let them cook next year.  Outsource will enable you to really enjoy the day with your kids and family, which is far more meaningful.

2.  Shop online - Given that this is 2015, it seems a little silly to be saying this.  But I still talk to so many friends who are reluctant to do this.  You can get your shopping done in an hour instead of days.  You family doesn't know the difference.  You don't get bonus points for suffering in retail stores.

3.  Dedicate one day to shopping - So for everything you can't buy online (candy, stocking stuffers, food, etc.), dedicate one day to buying these items and call it done.  Personally, I go to Christmas Affair in Austin every year.  They have 200+ booths.  I drink, enjoy, and shop.  I am determined to find everything I need that day and then, I'm done.

4.  Select 3 Events and say No to Everything Else - There are so many things to go to and attend during the holidays that you can feel overwhelmed.  You don't have to feel that way.  I also think it's important to build traditions during the holidays, so I take the approach of choosing a few things we do every year.  That way I know at the beginning of the season what we are doing, what I need to buy tickets for, and what I need to put on the calendar.  We might end up doing other things if we have time and want to, but I don't feel obligated to at all.

5.  Streamline your Christmas Cards - I know a lot of people would say just give up the tradition of the Christmas card.  But I truly like sending and receiving Christmas cards.  For my non-Facebook using friends who live far away, this may be the only time I really get an update on their family.  I don't want to lose that.  BUT Christmas cards can be very time consuming, so here's what I do:

  • I have all of my addresses in an Excel spreadsheet
  • I have a Word doc that automatically pulls the addresses into a 3 column document that I print on address labels (happy to share my templates if anybody wants them)
  • I order stamps from USPS (that's right, I don't even go to the post office)
  • I order my cards and return address labels super early.  I made my card in September.
  • So all I really have to do is spend 30 minutes assembling my cards, and then, I'm done!  I have even paid the babysitter an extra $20 to stuff Christmas cards for me when I was desperate.
6.  Give photos as gifts - One of the most time consuming holiday activities is trying to figure out what to give the grandparents.  They don't need or really want anything.  So...give them photos and photo gifts.  They like them.  It's easy.  You don't have to rethink this every year.  Just go to Shutterfly and have a ball!

7.  Buy gifts when you travel - If you do have the luxury of traveling to interesting places, buy gifts then.  Everyone loves to shop when they travel, so this gives you a good excuse.  And gifts from your travel experiences are special and let loved ones know you were thinking of them while on vacation.  AND when the holidays come around, you're like, "Wow.  I already have a gift.  Check!"

8.  Make decorating a family affair - What to do with the whole family while you are trapped in the house on Thanksgiving with no where to go?  Decorate.  I make sure the tree (well, who am I kidding...trees, plural...I'm little crazy about Christmas decorating) are setup ahead of time.  Then, the family decorates the trees while we watch the Macy's parade.

9.  Spend as much time as possible doing the things you really enjoy about the holidays - I love listening to Christmas music, so I listen to it all of the time.  Shamelessly.  But it reduces the holiday stress oddly.  I also like looking at Christmas lights (which my kids do too).  We frequently subject my husband to driving around neighborhoods to just look at lights.  It's easy and requires no planning, and I really feel like we are enjoying the holidays.  And lastly, I drink hot chocolate.  This is the one time of year I feel entitled to just drink hot chocolate, because it's a part of the holiday spirit.  

Here's to hoping you survive and hopefully enjoy the holidays with minimal stress!  I know you can do it.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Does Your Child Do These Things?

I write a lot about my daughter and her hypersensitivity to lots of things.  But I don't write as much about my son.   Why?  Well, because he has for the most part coped with our family life and not really required a lot of extra energy or knowledge to understand.  He has been a typical little boy.  He hasn't had developmental delays.  His social skills are developing.  He listens (most of the time) and makes eye contact well.  He communicates very well.  In fact, he's amazingly good at expressing himself and his feelings.  He loves to play and go places.  He is for the most part an awesome little kid.

But he's nearing 3 and he has some...let's call them "quirks"...that don't seem to be going away.  Like what you might ask?

First and foremost, he grabs and touches EVERYTHING.  Always has, ever since he started crawling.  It doesn't matter if you tell him it's hot or dangerous, he still desperately wants to touch everything.  I will tell him my coffee is hot, and he asks if he can put his finger in it and see.  We tell him knives will cut him and give him a big boo and he asks if he can just hold them gently.  Taking him into a store is a huge challenge, because even though he might try to contain his impulse to grab things, he doesn't do it terribly well.  So the trip is a series of  "Don't touch that.  Stop grabbing.  No, don't.  You will break that.  Do I have to put you back in the cart?"

Next on the quirk list is mealtime.  Mealtime with our son sucks.  He seems to be incredibly uninterested in eating.  He doesn't want to sit still.  He refuses to eat with utensils - only wants to eat with his hands.  And when he does eat, he shoves so much in his mouth, he gags and spits it all back out.  But interestingly, when he does choose to eat, he selects foods I wouldn't think kids would love.  He loves chocolate including dark chocolate.  He loves salami.  He loves dates.  He will happily put most things in his mouth.  Now they may be immediately spit out, but he does try it first.

He has started having some serious tantrums.  These are not like our daughter's angry rages where she clearly loses emotional control.  These are clearly fits showing us his displeasure that he isn't getting what he wants.  He's capable of stopping them, but yet he's so frustrated with us, he will continue to throw the tantrum for 30-45 minutes...frequently telling us he doesn't want to calm his body, because he's mad.

Other quirks that are curious but don't bother us include:
1.  Loves to clean.  He will gladly help me with household chores - cleaning tables, floors, vacuuming, etc.
2.  Loves bubbles - like her LOVES bubbles.
3.  He loves to be covered in blankets.  He can rarely just sit on the couch without having a blanket on him.  When he sleeps at night, he insists on being covered with 3 blankets even if it's 95 outside.
4.  He is super affectionate.  Loves hugs, loves to be held, and loves to sit in laps (all of the time).
5.  He asks 60,000 questions about every new thing he encounters and he often asks the same questions over and over.
6.  When he finds something he's interested in (i.e. construction equipment, planes, windmills), he will ask to see the thing over and over again.  I mean as soon as he sees a backhoe, he says, "I want to see more backhoes."
7.  He talks out loud to himself a lot.  He will lay in his bed at night and talk about what happened in his day.  He will give himself pep talks.  He will talk to his buddies.  But it's always completely out loud, not at all in a quiet voice.
8.  He loves jumping, running, being thrown around, spinning in chairs, riding fast rides, etc.
9.  He gets boo boos regularly that he has no idea how they occurred.  These are boo boos that I would hear about for days from our daughter, but our son is surprised to see they exist.
10.  It takes him 45 minutes each night to settle and finally go to sleep.  He kicks, squirms, sits up, talks, etc. until he finally passes out.  I actually bought him a weighted blanket to help soothe him, and he loves it!  The moment I gave it to him, he covered himself completely with it and just laid down on the tile floor and said he was going to sleep.
11.  He LOVES swinging.  I mean loves it.  He will play with other things on the playground, but once he gets on the swing, that's it.  You must endure a tantrum to get him off the swing.  He would probably swing for 5 hours straight if someone would push him for that long.
12.  If there is music playing that he likes, we cannot make the volume loud enough for him.  He just wants it louder.
13.  He runs into things and seems oblivious to things right in front of him.  We will say, "Parker eat your avocado."  Parker says, "Where?"  "Right there."  "Where?"  Yes, he's far-sighted and wears glasses, but I don't think that accounts for this.

So as I typically do, I began to research.  And what I found is that our son appears to have the polar opposite issue that his sister experiences.  He isn't hypersensitive.  He's hyposensitive.  What does that mean?  Some kids, like our daughter, are very easily stimulated by noises, lights, tastes, and textures.  A fire truck can send them into a crazy frenzy.  But hyposensitive kids need louder noises, brighter lights, stronger, tastes, and bolder textures to register with their senses.  Otherwise, they are just kind of bored or underwhelmed with their environments.

Just like hypersensitive kids, hyposensitive kids may only be hyposensitive with certain senses.  With our son, I think he has auditory, tactile, taste, and vestibular (balance) hyposensitivies.  It's possible he has others, but he's just not old enough yet to recognize the visual and olfactory hyposensitivities.  Here's a link to a site that provides more information on each hyposensitivity.

This explains so much to me.  It helps me realize that he isn't just disobedient and messy.  He needs to touch things to experience the world around him and get enough information to understand everything.  He doesn't really taste a lot of the foods we give him, because they aren't spicy or flavorful enough, so he's completely disinterested in mealtime.  He has a hard time sitting still, because he's searching for something more stimulating to calm him down.  He shoves tons of food in his mouth at once to better experience and taste the food.  Little bites don't do anything for him.  He loves lots of blankets, because the heaviness of the blankets feels more soothing and calming to him.  He needs fast moving experiences to stimulate his vestibular system and better develop his sense of balance.

So right now I don't really know what this means for him.  Does he need occupational therapy to better develop his senses?  Can we do more at home to help him?  We'll find out at his 3 year well check when I talk to his doctor.  But what I do know is now I have a much better understanding of why he's doing these things.  We can look for better solutions that will help him and us be less frustrated.

And as a parent, I've learned a lot about how much our senses determine who we are as people.  Our brains are wired to experience the world around us in a particular way.  And every child is wired a little bit differently.  They can be peculiar little creatures, but there is logic behind the madness if we can just better understand how each child is experiencing the world around them.