Oh Dangle!

This week brought a ‘curse’ (of sorts) from Makenna. To preface this, If I drop something or get frustrated I typically say, “Oh Dang It!” or, “Dang It All!” So imagine my amusement when Makenna got frustrated when something dropped and she said, “Oh Dangle!” Then followed it up with “This is ridiculous!” Last night (January 26th,) we were asking her to pick up toys and as she was carrying her games to the shelf, they fell and out of her mouth came, “RATS!” Shortly after I heard “this is ridiculous.” I was laughing to say the least.

She has also been getting more defiant in some respects and yelling at me to sit on the naughty step. Not only that, but she has been using my name of “Teri” instead of my moniker of “mom” to talk to me. She’ll respond to my request or demand with, “Well Teri…..”(Make sure you add a tone of exasperation as you read it as that’s how she says it.) On one hand it makes me laugh but on the other hand I guess I have to put an end to it out of respect.

One night last week, it was her and I eating dinner and she started a conversation by saying, “Sooooo Teri…..” I just laughed. It’s like I was being interrogated about something I did that day.

She’s also getting very bossy with her younger cousins. She orders them around and drags them by their hands. I realize this is normal but I also felt maybe some of it stemmed from being bossed around by bigger kids at pre-school. Then yesterday I had a talk with one of her teachers about how they have to talk to Makenna about ordering around other kids. I guess that theory is out the window.

My latest frustration is with swim. The last two Saturday’s she’s refused to go swimming after I get here there and all dressed and ready to go. I know she loves it and I’m baffled as to what the problem is. One of her usual teachers has not been there the last two weeks and I think that could be the biggest culprit. I don’t think it’s from her fall at pre-school at the pool over a month ago as she doesn’t really state that’s the issue and she’s swam since then. When I ask her what the problem is, she states not wanting to jump off the blocks.

The blocks are like the starting blocks you see swimmer jump off of. I keep reassuring her that she doesn’t have to jump off of them. Last session of swim, on Thursday’s, they’d take the kids down to that end of the pool and those that wanted to jump off the blocks could. Makenna always opted not to and just jumped from the side of the pool. On Saturday’s the pool is so full of different levels of swimmers that they don’t even go down to that end. All of this doesn’t seem to faze Makenna – she refused to go in. I think this week daddy’s going to come and see what he can do. (*Update...she did go swimming with daddy there. So now we'll have to see about this Saturday).

Gymnastics is still on the improvement stage. Last night was good because it was her and another girl. So the teacher could focus on them more exclusively and I think that helped but Makenna still had a tendency to run off and unfortunately tends to run off onto the floor where the girls are practicing their floor routine. I’m just waiting for a major collision as a girl is doing her tumbling routine and tumbles right into Makenna. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll be right in the middle of doing a flip and flip over Makenna – hopefully I’d have my video camera running then.

She did come up with the funniest thing yet last week, I think on Wednesday the 20th or Thursday the 21st. She had a little pimple on her face and the whole week prior, I kept telling her to leave it alone and stop picking at it. She kept saying, “It’s a temple?” I chuckled and just left her stating that it was a temple. Well finally on the Wednesday or Thursday, I finally corrected her saying, “It’s called a pimple and stop picking at it!” Her reply, “Well, (pause) mom, (pause) It’s a pimple with a castle on it!” I laughed as it was very hard not to, and thought to myself, “boy, if she thinks this is bad, wait until she’s really a teenager instead of a three year old acting like one.”

She has also been calling the Peter Pan book that Chris has been reading to her “Peanut Butter and Pan.” She keeps requesting that daddy reads “Peanut Butter and Pan.” I know I should correct these misstatements but I find them so cute. Just like when she would call a crocodile a crock-o-dider.

We’ve also been playing more games with Makenna lately. Candy-Land and a Disney Bingo game have been the typical games. She gets frustrated and bored quickly with Chutes and Ladders. I like Candy land as we’re trying very hard to have her learn her colors. Chris felt that maybe she couldn’t see the colors but she can move to the correct color she just won’t state what the color is after much prodding.

The Disney Bingo game is a real big hit. This is one she got when she was one, maybe two, as a gift and I kept telling her that when she was older she could play it. One day a couple of weeks ago, she brought it down and said, “I’m older.” We decided to try it and she is really good at it. It’s a DVD that will call out a Disney character and number (along with B I N G or O). I have to say about 90 percent of the time, Makenna knows or can find if she has that character on her board. At one point or another in the game, the DVD will play a Disney Movie clip and now Makenna is trying to tell us what it should play. I keep telling her we have no control over this. So now she’ll sometimes get bored and frustrated if it doesn’t do what she wants.

We’re still also trying to use the “star” reward system but I feel it’s gotten a bit out of hand in that Chris decides to use it to have her stop a habit. Take for instance, if she’s not listening to our direction on doing something that we’ve asked of her, if she all of a sudden will comply and do it, Chris will give her a star. Makenna hasn’t seen how she can use this to her advantage….Yet. I think given a little more time, she’ll realize that if she does something we don’t want her to, if we then yell or discipline her and say we’ll give her a star to stop, then she’ll be racking up stars left and right. I think she should just get stars for doing chores and acting appropriately in certain situations (like trying to get her to go swimming again). The Naughty Step should be instituted for doing bad behavior. But alas, that goes with our blog title of “miss-guided” in trying to figure out what works.

I do have to add that she's also been more helpful too. She enjoys feeding the cat her food and water and is usually compliant with bringing dishes to the sink and sometimes helping me with laundry.

On another cute note, Makenna has been coming down the stairs in the morning with arm loads of things. She wakes up, and grabs whatever suits her. This morning (January 26th,) she had her doll, her green elephant, a rabbit and one of her purses. This makes for a very crowded bed. It also leaves lots of stuff all over the house to pick up later, and a lot of convincing that she doesn’t need to take all of this stuff to pre-school. She still is very crabby when I have to wake her up. I think it was Wednesday of this past week (Feb 3rd,) that I went to wake her up for the morning and her reply, was "Oh honey, I need to sleep." I wanted to crawl right in bed with her and say, "me too."

Well, it’s been a few days since I typed a lot of this up…as usual. Which brings more antics and sayings out of the mouth of my child. She keeps saying, “You’re not my teacher!” This usually comes out when we’re asking her to do something that she obviously doesn’t want to do. This would be my fault in a sense in that I’ve always told her to listen to her teachers. It started back in England when she was taking swim classes. I would tell her that she would have to listen to her teacher so that she could play in the pool after. Plus I stress with her every day as we go to preschool that she has to behave and listen to her teachers. Well, now she’s decided that’s the only person she has to listen to.

I finally told her that I TRUMP her teachers, I’m above her teachers in the listening to stage and that it’s me and then her teachers because I’m her mother. Her response? “Your not my mother.” Well that could explain the break down in listening.

Also the response last night (Jan 30th) when we asked her to come down for dinner…”Not right now, I have lot’s of stuff to do.” To which then Chris turned to me and said, “that is so you!” He then yelled up to Makenna….”Makenna, don’t listen to your mother.” Now that really doesn’t help…see previous paragraph where she already doesn’t feel I’m her mother.

Back on January 16th we celebrated my grandmother Grosek’s 100th birthday with family and friends. It was great to have such great family around to share in their memories of my grandmother. The news also came and interviewed her and my sister-in-law Autumn and her dad put together this video that they put on You-Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na68Zs0cZJQ

Not sure when this picture was done of my grandmother but I didn't even know it was her!