Pregnancy Flipouts and Awards!

Thanks for listening and helping me through my very first pregnancy flipout! Well, OK, the first flipout that I have actually posted about! You have to love all the lovely hormones coursing through your body and all its magical power over your ability to think rationally :)

I do want to clarify that being a perfect mother is never a worry for me....I already missed that boat a long time ago! I don't want to be perfect, as I think it teaches the girls more to see my imperfections and how I deal with them (Danielle-I think you wrote a post about that, which I totally agree with). I do think that just my overall stress helped contribute. As I thought about it more, I realized exactly what the triggers were. Analese, my sweet intense child, has been having such strong emotional outbursts lately, and some days it seems like all my energy has gone towards helping her get through them. When I think about what it will be like when the baby comes and I am more limited, I do worry that I won't be as available to her as much as I am now. We seem to be making some progress in helping her through, so I am hopeful that this will not be as much of an issue in the next few months....not like it is now.

But we are seeing improvements. It's funny, she will "guide" Mara when she is upset, just as I often guide her. I heard her telling Mara "See, look! You used your words and NOW I understand why your sad. Good job Mara! Now I can help you!"

Of course, Mara, being the younger sister, knows all the right buttons to push and boy, does she pus them! I have been helping Analese to understand this-that Mara just wants her attention, and that if she walks away, Mara will come to her. This morning Analese was trying to ask Mara if she wanted to play a game with her, and Mara just sat there, refusing to look or acknowledge her. I was so proud of Analese, who, after asking Mara several times to look at her and getting more and more upset each time, did take a moment to step back with me and talk about what Mara was doing. She then told Mara (with no prompting from me) "Mara, I am trying to give you attention, but your not listening. I will not talk to you until your listening ears are on!" and she stormed out of the room! Mara quickly followed and they then started playing Analese's game.

I wanted to finally acknowledge and pass out some awards! This first award I have received is from JO-N a few weeks ago (again, sorry its taken me so long). I am a new reader to her blog, and have really enjoyed her discussions on children and parenting.

I think it is so cute! I would like to pass this on to my lovely sister Chris, who is going through some major changes right now with a big move to Colorado in the next few months! I hope this brings some cheer into your day!


My next award if from Autumn, whose blog I highly recommend you go check out! I have recently discovered her blog, and have enjoyed getting to know her. She is an amazing photographer too! Thanks again!



I would like pass this award onto another sister of mine...Lorrie! Lorrie is about as real as you can get, and I love that her blog is such a true reflection of that. She has such love and devotion to her three children and it shows in every post, and such a great sense of humor (I get the giggles every time I see your exercise chart!)



So my two projects are completed, turned in and I do not have much to complete this week! Yeah! I hope to spend it playing catch up though. We have decided on some of the changes in order to help me get some more studying done, but I'll get into that tomorrow!