The happy moments amongst the chaos of the toddler years

My moment of Zen

It's those short moments of calm that I'm learning to appreciate more and more. I stopped to appreciate the beauty of a flower. Okay, it was a flower that Abbie had just ripped from a tree, after I had asked her not to. But all the same, it was pretty lying there on the bricks in the warm sunlight.

You may say, "how can Kristine be so positive all the time". You may say "that Abbie is such a perfect child". I say that a lot too. I feel truly blessed to have been entrusted with such a wonderful human being. Every day I find a new joy in knowing Abigail and I love her more and more. I write about the beauty of my baby because it's more relaxing for me to see this side of her.

Abbie has become a full blown 2 year old. If you are or ever have been a parent of a 2 year old you may understand what that means. I remember spending time with my nephews when they were toddlers and I remember that they were wild ones, but I honestly never understood what it meant to "parent" a toddler til recently. Some days I feel like I was a better mother before I became a mother. I always said "I'll never react in this way or I'll handle that situation like this". Before you have your own kids you have the clear presence of mind to see situations from the outside. You also have the ability to give the kid back to Mom when you've had a enough. You always hear that parenting is the most difficult job you'll ever have. I never fully appreciated that statement til recently. Although, I don't see it as a job I do agree that it is tough...

...and then there are these wonderful, beautiful, happy moments amongst the chaos and you stop to thank The Wonders of the Universe that you have been blessed with this angel.
Abbie and I have been making banana bread with all the bananas from the back yard. In this picture she tried a taste of the shortening-eeww, yuck!

So, with all that said it has been a tough week here at the Hutchinson home. Abbie chose this week to start climbing out of her crib as well as to start teething in her 2 year molars. She's had several days of runny diapers and she spent most of one night and morning throwing up. She's never thrown up before, so she had no idea what was going on. She was scared and exhausted. By 9am she and I were crashed out together in the guest room bed.

The vomiting has stopped but the "butt" continues to run. Her mood today has been good, bad and ugly. She's also developed a slight rash along her shoulders. It doesn't seem to bother her, but of course it's another thing to add to the list and to further confuse me. She had her 2 year check up on Thursday. She did get a booster shot for Hep A, so that always worries me. However, knowing that the runs began 3 days prior to the shot and that the first molar popped through that morning, I do feel confident that the shot is not the cause of her issues. It may have contributed somewhat, but I'm fairly certain that teething is the "root" of her problems - this week anyway.

On top of all that I beet myself up on a regular basis because I don't feel like I have any disciplinary control of Abbie. I've tried time outs and calmly explaining. She just laughs and runs away from me. I say things over and over to her and she just won't stop. It makes me feel hopeless and helpless some days, other days she's an angel.

Since she can now climb out of the crib I decided to take the crib rail off and put on the toddler bed rails. So, she now has free rein of the house and I no longer have the nice "cage" effect of the crib. At bed time I'm back to rocking her to sleep before lying her down. Otherwise she just pops right back up and refuses to lay down, no matter how tired she is. Nap time has become almost non-existent, unless I take her for a drive first. That's the only reason I'm sitting here now while she sleeps in her bed. By 11:00 am this morning she was so exhausted that she was spinning in circles with her blankie but would not lay down in her bed. She just will not give in to sleep. The car ride knocked her out in 5 minutes...go figure, what is a mother to do.

So, enough about all that. We'll get through it all the way we always have, with perseverance and a good heart. On a lighter and happier note; we have Sesame Street Live with her favorite monster Elmoe to look forward to at the end of the week. I can't wait to see her reaction to Elmoe, live and in person. She is going to flip her lid! Stay tuned for those pictures next weekend.

The way things have been going this week I can't promise my daily updates, but I'll try to post a few of those

"happy moments amongst the chaos of parenting a toddler".