be a better parent

chaeli has really been growing fast right before my eyes.

i’ve been really honing in on spending quality time with her in fear of losing precious moments.

i’m so glad that i have. my patience with her has been better, i feel like we’re closer, and there are times i actually feel like i’m getting the hand of this parenting-thing! :)

it’s not only hard to find time in a jammed schedule to spend with chaeli, but also the energy.

i’ve been guilty of just turning on the t.v. when i get home to her favourite channel, just so i can get some peace and quiet.

there needs to be more of a balance. i think i need to designate her t.v. time to while i’m preparing dinner, and then cut out t.v. before her bath and actually spend quality time with her then. it’s challenging but i think it may be worth it.

i’m going to do this gradually… maybe start with 2 nights and week and see if i can progress on that (except on thursday nights where i have class, of course).

also, every saturday or sunday, i want to designate craft time with chaeli so we can make christmas stuff together (presents from chaeli to family).

chaeli was horrendous with my mother friday afternoon. when i called to see how they were doing (as she was staying with my mom and dad that night so they could take her to their church picnic up north), she was running around screaming and laughing while my mom was trying to discipline her.

of course, my mom has no one else to blame but herself. she never listens to any of our rules for disciplining chaeli. which is why chaeli is a complete monster around my parents.

doug and i cancelled our romantic night out to go 30 minutes up north to my parents place to take matters in our own hand.

the 30 minutes drive allowed me to calm down.

by the time we got there i was ready to talk calmly with chaeli.

doug and i worked as a team to make chaeli understand that what she had done (which was break my mother’s glasses, after tricking my mom so she coul snatch it off my mom’s face and then not giving it back), was extremely bad. and that as a punishment we were to take her home and not let her to go the beach/picnic (which she had been looking forward to all week long).

the threat to remove a reward worked like a charm.

after further talking, we told her she was going to get one more chance. another very bad act would result in her not going (and i was prepared to wake up in the middle of the night to come get her if need be).

doug and i stayed in my parent’s town for dinner at a nearby pub. just in case that cell phone call would come through, meaning we would have to return to my parents place anyway, to go get her.

i was calm for once.

very unlike me.

i carefully took time to have a conversation with chaeli yesterday…

me: “do you want to go camping again, chaeli?”

her: “yeah!”

me: “who do you want to come with us?”

her: “M!”

me: “just M?”

her: “and auntie l… no, wait… wait… umm… AUNTIE C!” (she sometimes gets the names confused)

me: “anyone else?”

her: “uncle G!”

me: “is it okay if mommy invites auntie A and uncle H, too?”

her: “sure!”

me: “maybe auntie A will bring cookies for you and M!”

her: “oh! okay… that’s perfect!”

how old is she?

chaeli was incredibily stubborn this week. and while i heard my husband lose his cool more then once, i suddenly realized my own fault as a parent…

due to my habit of always being in a rush, i often forget that chaeli does things at a certain pace because she’s still taking everything in into her noggin’ of hers. and to her, the world is a much bigger place. even when confined to just one room, that one small room is her very big and gigantic world at that moment.

i was a horrible parent today… not attentive, losing my cool, frustrated, angry, upset… totally exhausted as well.

i don’t know what happened. i was just not able to get into the parenting zone. poor kid. all she wanted was more attention. yet i just couldn’t give anymore. did not help that doug worked today…

perhaps i’m not so good being the solo-mom on weekends because i’ve been working all week? i don’t know. but yeah – not too proud of myself today. don’t blame the kid if she grows up hating me. :(

she may not like it, but over the past year, i’ve noticed that chaeli has been watching more and more tv. i’m sure that on some days, she’s close to 3 hours a day, though most of the time it’s closer to 2 hours a day.

that’s too much. especially for a two year old.

i’m making a stand. limiting t.v. and NO TV during meals. i hope my mother (her caregiver during the working days) will abide by my rules.

dinner is one of my biggest concerns. i want to discipline all of us in making dinner time part of our family time. where we sit together after a busy days, all of us doing different things, in order to connect and talk about our day.

i grew up with a t.v. always on in the kitchen. and i remember there were evenings where i wanted to tell my parents things but was told to ‘hush’ because my father wanted to listen to the news.

after awhile, i couldn’t separate myself from t.v. during dinner time. and when my parents chose to turn it off because they wanted to talk to me (usually about something that i did wrong), i was not for it.

i don’t want the same thing to happen between chaeli and us. the communicatin has to stay open in order for us to have less conflicts (as there’s always enough conflicts as there is).

i’ve been more focused on eating healthy and being more consistent with my workouts lately… and while i must admit that i’m doing it mainly for my own health, a really big part of it is to raise chaeli to live a healthy lifestyle as well.

i don’t think it’s very effective to nag one’s child to eat properly and exercise when they don’t see their parents practicing what they preach.

growing up, i had issues with my weight. my parents were constantly nagging me to lose weight… but they never exercised. nor ate all that well.

i don’t want the same thing to happen to chaeli and i. i’m hoping that by being healthy, she will just incorporate it into her lifestyle as well.

a couple of weeks ago, we took the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather.

right at the heart of cabbage town (a district in the east part of downtown toronto) is a farm. it’s truely an odd location. i didn’t know it existed until i became a parent.

but there you have it… riverdale farm.

click to view album

chaeli had a fairly good time. she’s always at her best when we are out – i suppose there’s a sense a freedom that we all enjoy together. plus, the new sights and sounds distract her enough to keep her goin.

we walked the grounds and then found ourselves at this little restaurant called ‘piggies!’ the restaurant is only opened for sunday brunch, with a snack bar for the rest of the week.

yummy brunch. chaeli had a grill cheese sandwhich and fries. doug and i both shared a roasted red pepper, goat cheese over spring greens, and ordered two smoked salmon scramble with home fries and an english muffin.

we took our time home so little miss could fall asleep in the car.