Here's a little peek at my princess.
Madisyn is a wonderful big sister. She is so full of love and always wants to help comfort Marlie. She loves to hold her and help me change her diapers. She sings her songs and says while stroking Marlie's cheek "awe it's ok sweetheart" when she's crying. It's really the sweetest thing. It brings so much warmth to my heart.
Now, because she is doing so well with her sister, I just figured nothing had changed and that it wasn't really affecting her in a negative way at all. Boy was I wrong. Let me show you what I mean.
Here we have just one of the what seems like 100s of examples of Madi's recent pleas for attention. She dumped out an entire bottle of baby powder in her room WHILE she sat in her pants that were soaked in pee. Double whamy.
She did this little art demonstration while I was feeding Marlie just a few feet away. I actually handled this one quite well. I was very calm. I made sure she understood that what she did was wrong and then we cleaned it together. I can't say the same for the countless other incidents we've been having in these past few weeks. Lets just say sometimes there's yelling, lots of time outs and even more tears. I was just getting so frustrated. I was so done with cleaning up a new mess every time I turned around. I thought I was going to pull my hair out! My patience was running really thin to say the least. Just when I was ready to throw in the towel, a very simple though occurred to me.
My daughter was screaming for attention!
Every time she did something naughty I would drop everything and give her attention. It was negative attention, but she didn't care. I would touch her and talk to her and focus on her. Why didn't I think of this weeks before? I told David my realization and we immediately put it into action. I set aside Madi time every day now even if it's just 5 minutes here and there to let her know she's loved. If she's throwing a fit I ask her if she needs some love. That is usually the case. Last night I was putting her to bed after a great day. No potty accidents, no tears, no timeouts. She decided that she didn't want to go to bed and boy did she let me know. She started crying and throwing her arms in the air. I picked her up and twirled her around a bit while singing "if you're happy and you know it" ironic :) It worked like a charm. Thank goodness for inspiration. It has saved my sanity!
Here's a few other things we've been doing together during our mommy madi time.
We made cookies and she was so excited. She pretty much did everything except the eggs. She was so proud and we had a blast! She even did some dishes. Bonus! It's so much more enjoyable to clean up a messy kitchen with a happy girl than to clean up a messy room torn apart by an attention deprived girl.
Another thing we enjoy doing together is playing with puzzles and blocks. Madi is such a genious. Seriously. She has me in awe sometimes. Look at the way she sorted all her blocks. I did not do that. They are all arranged by color and shape. When I was teaching preschool that's the kind of stuff I was teaching 4 year olds and they still had a hard time with it. I didn't tell her to build it that way. She just has such an amazing mind. I love seeing her grow and learn and I'm so glad I realized how important mine and David's love and attention are to her right now.
I just love this girl!! I always want her to know that regardless of how many other kiddos I have. She will always be my princess.
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