I should not have been surprised, and yet somehow I was. It seems that most of Isabelle's absolutely abysmal behavior (and yes, it can only be described as abysmal) was in large part due to Clay's absence from the home. I mean I knew she missed him. I knew it played a part. But clearly I had no idea how big a part.
Score one for the Daddy's of the world, right? I did not really need proof that fathers played a significant role in their children's lives, but this little experiment did, nonetheless, serve to add weight to their importance. While Clay would be the first to tell you that he is no Mr. Mom, he is a present figure in his daughter's life, home for daily dinners, and around in the evening for some one-on-one time, whether it is a family walk in the neighborhood, some time at the park, or just hanging out in the living room. He does his time reading books, playing trains (or yes, tea party.... a real man can fold himself into those tiny chairs) and come the weekends he always carves out some time with Isabelle. The thing is she doesn't care what they do.... it doesn't matter if they are golfing, washing the car, mowing the lawn, or "monkeying" with something in the garage so long as she is with Daddy. Clay lets her tag along and help, making her feel special and important, a true Daddy's little girl.
So, I guess you could say when Daddy went away the last two weeks Miss Isabelle decided to punish everyone involved. She punished Clay by refusing to talk to him on the phone for probably the first week he was gone, and obviously I turned into her designated punching bag of abuse, the one to take all her frustrations and sadness out on. When I think about it she started acting up as soon as we mentioned Clay was going to be taking a trip, and she knew her precious routine would be shook up.
The contrast this week in her behavior is nothing short of astonishing... a shrink would probably have a field day with it. The tantrums just vanished as well as the yelling and talking back, and the one time when I did put her in time out this week, she calmed down within five minutes, apologized for her behavior, and we went on with our day. Juxtapose that with a week ago when she screamed and kicked for over an hour in time out, resulting in her ultimately making herself vomit and then still refusing to say sorry for her transgression. The last two weeks she has gone around mumbling that she is sad and tired all of the time, and this week she is back to her bouncy self and is once more proclaiming to the general public that she is "so happy." This schizophrenic behavior is a little too much too take and reminds me once more of her back when she was an infant and Clay and I had dubbed her as Good Isabelle and Evil Isabelle, depending on which mood/face she was presenting to us at the time. Is it possible for a three year old to have multiple personalities? Ha, ha!
All joking aside I think it is more indicative of a very sensitive soul, and Isabelle comes by that honestly. I have often been accused of too easily "taking things to heart." Naturally, I would argue that being more sensitive to our surroundings and other people is not necessarily a bad quality or a shortcoming. Some people have always felt the need to tell me to "buck up" and not understand why I react to things so strongly. I happen to think it fantastic that a dog food commercial can bring me to tears, a sunny, windswept day can cause me to laugh out loud, a U.S. Olympian can make me burst with patriotic pride, and one grin from my daughter can make my heart fit to burst. Shouldn't everyone feel so strongly? Doesn't everyone? And if you don't then, I can only say I am sorry. When I was young and in school it was hard to be "overly-sensitive," as I was so often described, because being quick to tear-up was embarrassing at that age. Of course, I will hope to teach Isabelle how to better manage and understand her strong emotions but not to suppress or quell them because they are what gives us our zest for life. They are what makes us human and her sensitivity helps define who she is as a person. She will come to learn that her tears do not compromise her strength, and that having a sensitive soul only opens her heart to even more love. And who wouldn't want that?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Too Many Thoughts, Not Enough Time
Somehow time has flown away from me once more, and I open my blog up and discover too much time has gone past, and I have not written, and now there are so many items I would like to write and how to choose?????? I suppose it is a common problem among people who constantly have their minds full of words; everything I witness, experience and think of is routinely being turned into a mini story in my head. So, in keeping with the fact that I have a bazillion little anecdotes/ideas/newsie thingies in my noggin (How is that for some good English? My former professors are all cringing and wringing their hands in shame.) I am just going to lay it all out for you guys.
Clay has been away for the last two weeks on a very long trip for work. This has meant that yours truly is at home alone with Miss Isabelle 24/7 who at present has decided to revisit a time of truly evil behavior. I refer to a period of time when she was under six months old and basically screamed all day. Lately she has been throwing tantrums to the same effect except now she is not 3 months she is 3 years old, so you get the idea. UGH! It has been a very large exercise in patience, and one I am sorry to say I do not always excel at. It all boils down to the simple fact that she is a very strong-willed child who is trying very hard to establish her boundaries and feels the need to frequently and repeatedly test said boundaries. Suffice it to say it has made for some very long days compounded by the fact that she truly misses her Daddy. We are OH SO HAPPY he is coming home tonight.
We have managed to have some laughs while Daddy has been away one of which included me mowing the lawn for the first time in my life. Yes, I am thirty-two and had never mowed a lawn before. I know kind of pathetic, but please understand I grew up with a father who felt daughters just did not mow lawns, plus I had an older brother who did. Anyways, Clay gave me a tiny crash course on the finer points of running his self-propelled walk behind mower, and a week after he was gone Isabelle and I broke the bad boy out for my virgin mow. Now Clay and I were both a little concerned on whether or not I would be strong enough to be able to start it as it had a pull start. When I had started it before it was after it had been running a while, but we both figured if I had to I could run next door to the neighbors and have Mike help me start it and then I could be on my way. After reassuring Isabelle repeatedly that yes, Daddy had told me I could use his lawn mower and her reminding me to make sure there was enough gas I tried to start it. Repeatedly. No luck. Despite all best efforts and tugging with all my might, I just could not get it to go. I was just about to call it quits and swallow my pride and go knock on my neighbor's door to prevail upon the "stronger sex" (gag me) when my 3 year old comes up and says "No, Mommy, you have to hold this bar and then pull the cord." DUH! Turns out I was so focused on trying to start it with enough strength that I completely forgot to pull back the bar to the handle and then yank the damn cord! Can you all say dumb blond moment!! So, I kindly thanked my brilliant daughter for reminding me of the obvious, started the mower and off I went. She proceeded to be wonderful that day, telling me how well I was doing, later showing me how to remove the bag for the grass clippings, and informing me that while my cutting job was "not as good as Daddy's" it "looked fine." What an experience.
I am also gearing up to send my daughter off to preschool for the first time in just a couple short weeks. I am excited and nervous and, of course new to this whole scene. I ordered her a back pack of her very own, and I think I might get her some slippers to just keep at preschool, so she can wear her boots there during the bad weather and then have her slippers to run around in there rather then having to mess around with different shoes everyday. I still need to come up with a good way of labeling her things. Dear sister-in-law of mine what do you do with my lovely niece and nephew's things? I have seen one clothes' labeler out there but I read mixed reviews on it and wondered how well it worked. Yes, a new chapter for us, although it is just some baby steps as it is a class that meets two days a week for two hours at a time in the morning. I am planning to do my errands and shopping while she is in school, which will be SO NICE, and I am hoping some new activities and challenges might help improve some of our current behaviour issues as well.
On a personal note the headache monster has largely been slumbering this month, and I feel great. With the exception of one fairly yuck headache at my brother's earlier in the month I have been pain free. Plus, upon examining that headache further I realize I brought that one on myself through my activities and food intake (or lack thereof). There has been a bit of a learning curve with this medication and discovering what my body can and cannot do while I am on it, especially in regards to exercise. In general it just seems to make me weaker and while I am frustrated by that it seems a small price to pay to not be in constant pain.
There are so many other topics I would like to touch on, but I find I need to do a few productive things with my day (while I find this productive for my mind it does not keep my house clean or pay the bills.... oh, I wish!) so, off I go for now as Miss Isabelle will be up from her nap shortly. The other stories floating around my brain matter will have to wait!
Clay has been away for the last two weeks on a very long trip for work. This has meant that yours truly is at home alone with Miss Isabelle 24/7 who at present has decided to revisit a time of truly evil behavior. I refer to a period of time when she was under six months old and basically screamed all day. Lately she has been throwing tantrums to the same effect except now she is not 3 months she is 3 years old, so you get the idea. UGH! It has been a very large exercise in patience, and one I am sorry to say I do not always excel at. It all boils down to the simple fact that she is a very strong-willed child who is trying very hard to establish her boundaries and feels the need to frequently and repeatedly test said boundaries. Suffice it to say it has made for some very long days compounded by the fact that she truly misses her Daddy. We are OH SO HAPPY he is coming home tonight.
We have managed to have some laughs while Daddy has been away one of which included me mowing the lawn for the first time in my life. Yes, I am thirty-two and had never mowed a lawn before. I know kind of pathetic, but please understand I grew up with a father who felt daughters just did not mow lawns, plus I had an older brother who did. Anyways, Clay gave me a tiny crash course on the finer points of running his self-propelled walk behind mower, and a week after he was gone Isabelle and I broke the bad boy out for my virgin mow. Now Clay and I were both a little concerned on whether or not I would be strong enough to be able to start it as it had a pull start. When I had started it before it was after it had been running a while, but we both figured if I had to I could run next door to the neighbors and have Mike help me start it and then I could be on my way. After reassuring Isabelle repeatedly that yes, Daddy had told me I could use his lawn mower and her reminding me to make sure there was enough gas I tried to start it. Repeatedly. No luck. Despite all best efforts and tugging with all my might, I just could not get it to go. I was just about to call it quits and swallow my pride and go knock on my neighbor's door to prevail upon the "stronger sex" (gag me) when my 3 year old comes up and says "No, Mommy, you have to hold this bar and then pull the cord." DUH! Turns out I was so focused on trying to start it with enough strength that I completely forgot to pull back the bar to the handle and then yank the damn cord! Can you all say dumb blond moment!! So, I kindly thanked my brilliant daughter for reminding me of the obvious, started the mower and off I went. She proceeded to be wonderful that day, telling me how well I was doing, later showing me how to remove the bag for the grass clippings, and informing me that while my cutting job was "not as good as Daddy's" it "looked fine." What an experience.
I am also gearing up to send my daughter off to preschool for the first time in just a couple short weeks. I am excited and nervous and, of course new to this whole scene. I ordered her a back pack of her very own, and I think I might get her some slippers to just keep at preschool, so she can wear her boots there during the bad weather and then have her slippers to run around in there rather then having to mess around with different shoes everyday. I still need to come up with a good way of labeling her things. Dear sister-in-law of mine what do you do with my lovely niece and nephew's things? I have seen one clothes' labeler out there but I read mixed reviews on it and wondered how well it worked. Yes, a new chapter for us, although it is just some baby steps as it is a class that meets two days a week for two hours at a time in the morning. I am planning to do my errands and shopping while she is in school, which will be SO NICE, and I am hoping some new activities and challenges might help improve some of our current behaviour issues as well.
On a personal note the headache monster has largely been slumbering this month, and I feel great. With the exception of one fairly yuck headache at my brother's earlier in the month I have been pain free. Plus, upon examining that headache further I realize I brought that one on myself through my activities and food intake (or lack thereof). There has been a bit of a learning curve with this medication and discovering what my body can and cannot do while I am on it, especially in regards to exercise. In general it just seems to make me weaker and while I am frustrated by that it seems a small price to pay to not be in constant pain.
There are so many other topics I would like to touch on, but I find I need to do a few productive things with my day (while I find this productive for my mind it does not keep my house clean or pay the bills.... oh, I wish!) so, off I go for now as Miss Isabelle will be up from her nap shortly. The other stories floating around my brain matter will have to wait!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Migraines, Milligrams, and Monsters, Oh My!
I suppose it would have been way too simple for my headaches to have proven to be so weak as to "give up the ghost" as easily as it appeared they did when I first began taking Topomax, right? I mean, it would hardly of made them worthy of their Jaws-like status in the headache world. So true to form they made a solid reemergence last week around the dreaded menstrual cycle (any of you squeamish men out there who can't handle talk of a woman's period just go away). And while some people say taking an over the counter medication on top of the Topomax can sufficiently quell their pain, no such luck was found for me. After being blessed with a beautiful (fantastic, wonderful, gorgeous, great, blissful, near idyllic) brain time this past month, I confess I was rather disheartened to find myself this past Thursday clutching my head in the kitchen while tears streamed down my face, trying to hold it together yet again. Damn.
However, we are making progress, I remind myself. After putting in a call to my doctor we have decided to up the milligrams of the Topomax and see if a higher dose can better attack the significantly more evil and diabolical headaches that like to plague me around that time of the month. And, of course now that I am beyond my monthly cycle I find I am once again pain free and feeling grand so all in all it is good. I mean, even if I have to suck it up and have some bad head pain every week and a half to two weeks out of a month it is way better then having it virtually every day like I was before. Of course, upping the milligrams means I am feeling all the side effects again and more strongly, some of which can be annoying, the tiredness, the tingling and numbness in the extremities, the way you can over heat more easily, but frankly all of it is nothing if it means my head does not hurt.
No, mostly, last week as I was dealing with my monster headaches again after having a blessed hiatus from them, I was thinking how awful it was that anyone has to ever suffer from chronic pain. That and of the stupid commercials for Imitrex they had out on television maybe two years ago which featured some little cartoon monster which was supposed to be your migraine, cavorting around the screen with a little devilish grin on his face and jumping on the "migraine sufferer's" head, while she grimaced and held her hand to her temple. I remember thinking then that the person who made that commercial had never personally had a migraine because I got news for ya....... my headaches are not some cutesy, cartooney character that could double as an illustration in a Mercer Mayer kids book like "There's a Nightmare in my Closet." No, mine are more like something out of the mind of Stephen King like the slouchy, creepy thing in "Lisey's Story" perhaps. Something that most likely would have an NC 17 rating attached to it and would not be allowed into a commercial. Anyways...... I suppose it helps me to occupy my mind with useless thoughts such as this to help keep the pain at bay. Laughter is the best medicine, right? Well, that and Topomax, just in more milligrams!
However, we are making progress, I remind myself. After putting in a call to my doctor we have decided to up the milligrams of the Topomax and see if a higher dose can better attack the significantly more evil and diabolical headaches that like to plague me around that time of the month. And, of course now that I am beyond my monthly cycle I find I am once again pain free and feeling grand so all in all it is good. I mean, even if I have to suck it up and have some bad head pain every week and a half to two weeks out of a month it is way better then having it virtually every day like I was before. Of course, upping the milligrams means I am feeling all the side effects again and more strongly, some of which can be annoying, the tiredness, the tingling and numbness in the extremities, the way you can over heat more easily, but frankly all of it is nothing if it means my head does not hurt.
No, mostly, last week as I was dealing with my monster headaches again after having a blessed hiatus from them, I was thinking how awful it was that anyone has to ever suffer from chronic pain. That and of the stupid commercials for Imitrex they had out on television maybe two years ago which featured some little cartoon monster which was supposed to be your migraine, cavorting around the screen with a little devilish grin on his face and jumping on the "migraine sufferer's" head, while she grimaced and held her hand to her temple. I remember thinking then that the person who made that commercial had never personally had a migraine because I got news for ya....... my headaches are not some cutesy, cartooney character that could double as an illustration in a Mercer Mayer kids book like "There's a Nightmare in my Closet." No, mine are more like something out of the mind of Stephen King like the slouchy, creepy thing in "Lisey's Story" perhaps. Something that most likely would have an NC 17 rating attached to it and would not be allowed into a commercial. Anyways...... I suppose it helps me to occupy my mind with useless thoughts such as this to help keep the pain at bay. Laughter is the best medicine, right? Well, that and Topomax, just in more milligrams!
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