Sadie

I’m not a very good single mom.  It’s not that my kids are super difficult.  They are usually not too bad.  I get tired and start to get stressed about them making messes knowing that I still have a lot of work to do before I can go to bed and I really don’t want to also clean up their messes.  So I get a little short with them when all they are doing is playing and having fun.  But that’s not the worst.  It’s more about the amount of attention they demand from me and my need to have my brain to myself a little bit.  And nobody requires more attention than Miss Sadie.

I guess I don’t realize that her talking to Ryan in the mornings and getting his attention, leaves me with a little time not responding to every little thing or looking at every little thing she asks me to.  Spending the whole day with her and nobody else to take some of her attention, it gets a bit draining.  I’m not too proud to admit that Mickey Mouse got a lot of her attention yesterday.  And that was a preschool day…

Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with her.  I love how animated she gets when she tells you things about school or shows you her pictures from school, or sings you her songs from school.  She is beyond adorable.  But when I’m nursing the baby and trying to read something on my phone and she is DEMANDING my attention, it gets a little frustrating.  But I think I did okay with that today.  My mom-fail today was something different.

I set aside time this morning to catch up on the cleaning.  It wasn’t that bad, but I really needed to sweep and vacuum.  So I went around and cleaned up everything off the floor in all the rooms upstairs so I could vacuum.  Sadie first asked if she could help sweep the kitchen.  I didn’t see that going well so I kind of tried to change her focus.  She settled for using the floor duster on the entry, which was great.  Next she wanted to help vacuum.  In the past, her idea of “helping” was holding onto the handle and standing right in front of me while I tried to push it with her extra resistance.  That’s all well and good but now that I have Kaden, I am holding him with one arm and trying to vacuum with the other.  Not to mention I was trying to hurry because he was starting to fall asleep and I wanted to finish with the loud vacuum so I could put him down.  So I told Sadie I would let her try to vacuum all by herself when I finished my part.  She continued helping by keeping the cord plugged in.  The outlets are really “stretched out” and the cord doesn’t stay in very well when it gets pulled at all.  So she kept it plugged in and even moved it to a different outlet when I asked her to.  But then I laid Kaden down and was hoping the constant noise of the vacuum would not wake him up until I was finished.  Well, she was “helping” by pushing on the cord in the outlet and it was connecting and disconnecting and making the vacuum turn on and off and I got a little irritated.  I said, “Sadie, that’s not helping.” And I stepped in front of her (I admit, a little exasperated) and plugged it all the way in.  Then continued vacuuming.  A minute later I looked around for Sadie and didn’t see her.  By the time I finished the whole upstairs, I still didn’t see her.  The only explanation was that she had gone downstairs.  Let me just say that she does not go downstairs by herself hardly ever.  We have big crying fits because she doesn’t want to go downstairs alone to get her clothes to change.  She will sometimes run downstairs during dinner when we are trying to get her to taste the food and she is being stubborn (okay, that happens like every other night).  She will run down screaming.  So the fact that she had gone downstairs made me think she must be upset with me.  It’s not like I yelled at her, but I wasn’t exactly nice and thankful for her help either.  I was focused on getting the task done and keeping Kaden asleep.

So I went downstairs to check on her and she was in her room looking at books alone.  When I went in she gave me a sad face.  I asked what was wrong and she started crying and said, “you hurt my feelings.”  Talk about a mom-fail!  That broke my heart and I felt horrible!  I hugged her and cuddled her for awhile and I apologized.  And then I agreed to read some books to her, even though I really wanted to get in the shower while Kaden was sleeping, I knew I needed to give her some attention.

So this is what I mean when I say I’m not a great parent when I’m doing it alone.  I think Ryan and I can tag-team it pretty well.  Between giving the kids attention and cleaning things up a little.  But I’m not so good at doing it all.

I know I’ve mentioned before how social Sadie is.  You might call it ‘needy’.  She is not really that difficult, but she does thrive on social interaction.  When Ryan was home with her one day trying to get work done, he realized how out of control she was when he offered to turn on the TV and she begged him to sit and watch it with her.  She wants someone with her all the time.  She doesn’t like to eat at the table if nobody else is there either. 

I’m struggling with her constant talking, though.  That must sound mean.  Like I’m one of those moms who doesn’t actually like her kids.  Which is not true at all.  It’s just that she talks SO much.  She is constantly wanting to show you something, and makes sure that you actually look at her while she shows you.  She draws pictures and then shows you and tells you about them.  She talks about funny things that happened either at school, or the day before with her siblings, or on shows she has watched.  And if she isn’t jabbering, she’s asking you to print her out a picture.  I swear this is something she uses to get our attention for a bit.  Because it’s not as simple as “will you print me a picture of a kitty?”  You have to pull up the google image search and then she spends a good five minutes scrolling through them, pointing out funny or cute things about different pictures, but not actually choosing which one she wants.  It’s all a ploy to keep me focused on her and not doing what I want to be doing, I’m sure of it.  You don’t think so?  You don’t think that sweet girl is manipulative?  Well, maybe you’re right.  At the very least, she doesn’t do it intentionally.

So what happens if you ignore her?  She pulls out the sass.  We are seeing the sass more and more often these days.  Not just when you fail to respond to her, but when you ask her to do something and she doesn’t listen so you ask her a few more times.  I hear her shriek “fine!” way more than I should.  And man, does she talk back to me.  She is a stubborn little thing with very little respect.  She was screeching at me at the library the other day and I about lost it.  I don’t want to have to chew her out in a public place, but I also can’t stand to let her get away with talking to me like she’s the boss and I’m her slave.  I suppose she’s just at an age where she’s pushing her limits and I need to just make sure I don’t let her get away with it or this will get worse.  It’s not fun, though.

Sadie listened while Ryan read a Goosebumps book to Dylan.  I told them it wasn’t a good idea.  Sure enough, the first night Ryan was gone, Sadie came running into my room because of a nightmare.  I was half asleep so I can’t remember if I gave her a hug and sent her back downstairs, and then she came back a second time, or if I dreamed that and I just let her climb into Ryan’s side of the bed the first time.  Either way she was happy sleeping in my bed.  Even then I heard her whimpering and reached over to lay my arm on her.  She stopped when I did that.  Poor thing.  It’s funny how Kylee has never had a nightmare, and rarely remembers any of her dreams.  But my two really creative children have nightmares more often.  Their brains sure work differently.

It’s been over a month, but I haven’t posted her hair cut pictures yet.  

I loved her long hair, but I got so sick of being screeched at whenever I brushed her hair, or whenever her hair got caught in a zipper, or pulled while trying to pull the seat-belt.  It was getting out of control.  And it was crazy long.  The lady at Dollar Cuts asked if I wanted to donate it, but I didn’t want her to have “short” hair, just short-er.  I pictured it still long, just not down to her belly button.  It ended up looking much shorter than I had thought, I guess because of the proportions of head size compared to height.  Whatever, it’s just hair.  It will grow back.  And it’s been nice that she doesn’t screech quite as much.  And it doesn’t get food in it quite as much either.  I had been talking to Kylee about cutting her hair too and Kylee really didn’t want me to cut it.  Sadie wasn’t thrilled about a hair cut either, but she didn’t care that much.  I was actually pretty worried that Sadie would hate it when I saw how short it was.  I was picturing her crying and getting all mad.  But she was just fine.  I think she liked looking a little different.  But Kylee freaked out thinking I would want to cut her hair that short too.  What is with girls and hair?  Sheesh.

The first time Kylee and I left town for a gymnastics meet, I didn’t realize that Sadie had something special at school that day.  Her teacher had usually reminded us when we pick them up about what is going on the next time.  And I usually take a look at the calendar once a week to check if there’s anything special.  But somehow neither of those things happened and Sadie was unprepared for Pajama and Pancake day at school.  Her and Ryan both gave me grief, but whatever.  Ever since then Sadie has decided I can’t be trusted to keep track of school things.  She is constantly asking me if it is show-and-tell day.  And when I tell her no, she’ll say, “are you sure?”  I’ve lost all my credibility with her.

Speaking of school, she got a report card of sorts as well.  But it was just a paper saying that she passed off all her letters and letter sounds and is ready to start reading.  Her teacher sent home a paper with some phrases and sight words on it.  I went over it with her and she got it all really quickly.  She’s in class with all these kids that will be starting Kindergarten next year, but she has another year before she can even go into Kindergarten and she is already reading.  It’s crazy.  I haven’t actually worked with her at all with it since the last time I posted about having her sound out words.  So I wasn’t even sure if she would remember all the sounds, let alone the sight words.  But I decided I may as well get some books from the library that she can read.  So I got some Bob books for early readers and she has loved sitting down and reading to us.  If I wanted I could put more effort into teaching her some rules and some sight words, but since there is no rush and I’ve already got a bit on my plate, I haven’t pushed it.  I guess I would say that I’m surprised how quick she is just because we never do any school-related games with her.  She hasn’t even watched the Letter Factory videos in the last year.  She just picked it up really quickly and has remembered.  I wonder if her teacher thinks I spend a lot of time trying to help her to keep up with the other kids in her class.  Because I don’t.  Oh well.

I feel very fortunate to have gotten nearly perfect report cards for all three kids.  How often does that happen?  Maybe more than I know.  But still, I’m a proud mama!