TWENTY-FIVE

Toddling involves a lot of putting different toys in silly places. Apparently "Big Baby" was ready for lunch.

2015 week twenty-five

An entire beautiful summery week full of tears and whining and crying through the night. Poor little thing is getting some horrible teeth, or she's possessed. It has to be one of the two. 

Matt came home from high adventure and packed our freezer full of insects caught by his slaves: the young men. For a few days after Matt came home, Vera would walk past his camping gear and announce, "Papa made a HUGE big mess."

Bacon cake for a bacon birthday party for one of the young men. I was really proud of this; Matt thought it would probably need a sign so people would know what it is... rude.

Bacon cake, bacon chips, piles of bacon, bacon "crack", bacon log, (not pictured) bacon pizza. I'll probably never eat meat again -or for like a few more days. 

Bacon hanging from the ceiling, and a rousing game of "Pin the Hammer on Thor." I totally won. :)

Pumpkins are taking over my yard and I love it. All my other plants are dying from powdery mildew and I do not love it. 

Trying to distract her from her anguish with silly glasses and toys. I tried to distract her with popsicles but for some reason she cannot figure out popsicles -they simply confound her. She doesn't understand how to lick or suck on a popsicle. She wants to bite it and it makes her so mad she screams and kicks and begs for the popsicle that she doesn't understand. I have to bite off pieces and feed them to her. She is so weird. 

Captive audience. Watching Papa pin out bugs. 

At the farmers market. She cried and pulled on me the entire time, but then suddenly when she was able to go into the gazebo she was no longer sad. Strange how CRAZY she can be. There were some boys and she asked me, "What's that?" Me: "Boys" V: "I love boys." I would be alarmed but she also has this same exact conversation with me 100x a day and you can replace "boys" with anything from "dogs" to "rotten food" to "dirt" so really she just loves everything. 

Shrieking into the wind with temporary joy -and then we had to leave. I love the farmer's market even though I spend more money and still have to go back to the grocery store. But this one gives samples of everything and everything is lovely. The biggest score was a flat of overly ripe peaches for $5 that was turned into jars of jam and pie filling. V loved getting samples of berries and nectarines "neck dreams."

This is her permanent face -regarding everything. It doesn't matter if I give her the food she asked for, put on a movie (rare and special), go on a walk, give her cake or raspberry muffins or anything. It's this face constantly.  I also really hate hearing her begging for medicine all day. Medicine should not taste like candy. Medicine should taste horrible because it is medicine. I told V that she couldn't have too much medicine or she would get sick and when that wasn't enough of an argument then I said she could get so sick she'd have to go to the hospital. I paid for saying that. For 20 straight minutes, and several more 20 minute sessions throughout the day, she repeated non stop "Have to go to the hospital. Get so sick go to the hospital. So sad to have to go to the hospital. Can't go to the hospital today, maybe tomorrow. We go to the hospital later. Be so sad go to the hospital." I tried to stem it by saying well in a couple months we'll go to the hospital to get baby brother -wrong move. That only gave her more things to talk about while she obsessed over the hospital.

These two photos were taken by my niece. My poor sad toddler. Her little mouth just hurts so badly. Sadly, it took like 6 days of being miserable and angry and a turd before she made any indication that her mouth hurt, so we were all frustrated for a week with her behavior and had no idea what it was or what to do. One day she missed out on two birthday parties. She was so sad about it. She kept saying, "Can't go to the party. I have a fever. I have a HUGE big fever. No friends." 

Last week in church a friend of mine came up to me and said, "I just wanted to let you know how happy it made me today to see Vera scream and cry and throw a proper fit during sacrament meeting. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that she was a real toddler. So thank you." Yes, she is a real toddler. And for the first time in her life is having a difficult time teething, or something as equally evil. We didn't know what was going on and she was just so so so grumpy and whiney for DAYS. And the whining. The whining! There has got to be some sort of evolutionary explanation for the pitch and key that elicits a physical and psychological response in adults. I don't remember whining ever bothering me as a child. But something happens in the ear as it develops, I'm convinced, that renders the adult helpless to a whine. And by helpless I mean, unable to maintain their composure in the frontal cortex. It is all brain stem dealing with that jazz. I'm trying, trying, trying. I pray about it, I think about it, I discuss it, I take breaks, etc. I'm doing all the things that I can possibly think to do. 

The best thing I can do is to remind myself throughout the day that I am happy to do things. "I'm happy to wake up! I'm happy to be a mom! I'm happy to eat breakfast with my family! I'm happy to hold my crying toddler! I'm happy to do [insert anything that I have/get to do during the day!]" It helps, but only when I remember to say it before I deal with the issue. We also just give her breaks to compose herself before we can continue on calmly. I hope we're teaching her how to effectively manage and feel her emotions... Who knows. We're all trying. 

I was a really nice mom and took her to the park the other day. We walked there and she whined about being at the park for the 2 hours I forced her to be there. My sister-in-law came too and she gave us a ride home. I was not able to load the stroller into the car in time to talk to V about how she wasn't going to be able to sit in her cousins car seat (because he needed to sit in it) before she escalated and was really angry and screaming. Luckily we were only 5 minutes from my house. But for those 5 minutes she screamed -nazgul-like -and thrashed and flailed and kicked and tried to bash her head against things, pulling and seething against my arms holding her on my lap. I have never seen anything like it. She thrashed so hard she slammed her head into the seat in front of her and got a black eye. And did she stop thrashing after that? No. And when we got home she screamed for 20 more minutes in her room and then cried for 15 more minutes in my arms before she calmed down enough to fuss over her lunch and eat nothing. It was so repulsive and outrageous. I could not believe she would cause herself bodily harm over not being able to sit in someone else's carseat. Heaven help me. 

That night as I was rocking her and Matt and I were singing a few goodnight songs, V stopped her sniffling and started to sing with us. She was singing the words and to the right tune. It was so precious it melted me. How can a toddler be such a contradictory creature? Her favorite song right now is this lovely little one about the moon.

I see the moon and the moon sees me,

Shining through the old oak tree.

Please let the light that shines on me,

Shine on the one I love. 


Also, Happy Father's Day to my dad and my wonderful Husband. He is such a fun father to Vera. She and baby brother are so lucky to have him. For Father's Day I made him a breakfast of raspberry muffins, sharp aged gouda slices, local plums, and the seriously best ever orange juice (secret: You can buy it at Kroger!). We gave him a fun ice cube mold, some fancy root beers, his favorite ice cream, and a jar of some of the best pickles from Twisted Root. Apparently you can just go in there and buy some pickles! Happy Father's Day! I love you and you are such a perfect complement to me.