Highs and Lows

This week has barely started and there are already a list of highs and lows.

The Highs:

• Katherine has now been fully weaned for 2.5 weeks. She does still ask for it every day but I think she is kind of joking now. She will crawl into my lap and squish my chest and say "moot (milk), other side" over and over. Then she will say "mama empty, milk all gone". Today I reminded her that she had her yogurt milk in her cup to drink now (Kefir and milk mix) and she pointed to my chest and said, "mommy yogurt". Wouldn't that be fun if I made yogurt.
• Because Katherine is now weaned I am again able to cuddle and put her back to bed. That was the hardest part. For over a week I was having to distance myself and not have much cuddle time. It was hard. It was good that Sam has been home and he is such a great dad.
• Much, much family time. Sam has over 3 weeks of no work since he quit one job and delayed the start of the next one. We are getting a lot of family time which Katherine loves and we are getting a lot done around the house.

The Lows

• Tantrums - yikes, our sweet little girl can be a Jekyll/Hyde personality. She has thrown some major tantrums. We are really struggling with how to best deal with them. She is trying so hard to be independent. Sometimes she has done something she knows is wrong and it needs to be punished but sometimes she is just exploring her world and mommy says, "No". Then, mommy tries to show empathy and redirect her. For example, the other day I was folding clothes in her room and she was in her bathroom. I hear her say, "wet, mess". I turn around and she was dipping a burp cloth in the toilet and then using it to clean the tub. I took a deep breath and chose not to blow up or punish her. How would she know that the water in the toilet was not to be used to clean whereas the water in the sink or tub was? I got down on her level and said, "Katherine, you are such a good helper. We don't use the water from the toilet. Why don't we get a clean towel and mommy will get it wet in the sink and then you can use it to clean the bathtub." Her response - "yeah mommy". If I had taken away the burp cloth and told her "no" then she would have started a tantrum. There are plenty of those anyway so I want to avoid them when I can redirect.
• Potty training and diapering is getting to be frustrating. My plan was to switch back to cloth diapers after the holidays. The hope was that because they are cloth and feel more like underwear it would help us to finish off potty training. Well, between travel and sickness, it got put off until today. I have tried twice to put her in a cloth diaper and both times it has resulted in one of the aforementioned tantrums. Her request - "Elmo diaper mommy." I hate Elmo for this. I refuse to buy cute cloth diapers so that she will wear them when I have a perfectly good stash. I have not chosen to make it a battle yet because I know that she can and will probably win. If I do get the diaper on her, she is now capable of taking them off. Where does that leave me? With a big old mess. I was going to a cloth diaper store today to buy some petite training pants but they were closed due to an illness so that was a bummer.
• Sinus infections will not leave. All three of us seem to be stuck in a state where we are not really sick but we don't feel great either. Katherine actually has a runny nose (clear) and Sam and I just have the congestion, sore throat and cough. The worst part for me as that this is the only thing making my pregnancy sickness happen.

I know that parenting (and life for that matter) is always full of highs and lows. Those are just a few from this week.