Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)
Mine must be one of the small minds. I am very, very stressed out. Everything is starting to pile up on me, and I feel like I can't take it anymore.
Yesterday, I posted how I gave my daughter back her pacifier. I've thought about it some more as to why I am so upset by this turn of events (giving her back the pacifier and letting her into bed to sleep with us). I think the main thing is that I feel like a failure as a mother. Rationally, I know that I'm not. My daughter is well cared for, and I do the best that I can. But, I can't help but think that I'm not very good at this parenting stuff. I'm not consistent at all, so my daughter never knows what to expect. I get upset about little things. I probably don't spend enough time with her.
I don't know. I feel like she was doing so well, sleeping in her own bed, slowly giving up the dummy, starting to talk pretty well. Now, she's sleeping in our bed or with me on the couch. I gave her back the pacifier. And, she doesn't seem to be making any progress talking. Let me address all of these.
1. The sleeping thing is making me crazy, and that (along with all the wonderful hormones) is probably why I'm feeling so down. I need sleep. There are people who can survive easily on 4 or 5 hours of sleep per night. And I can to once in a while. But not night after night. Last night, right on cue, 2 AM and guess who's awake. Until 4 AM.
2. I'm okay with the pacifier thing now. I'd prefer that she didn't have it, but honestly, I don't care what any books or so-called experts say, my daughter still needs the pacifier. It is a source of comfort to her, and with all the changes in her life in the past couple of months, I don't feel I have a right to take it from her.
3. The talking thing is weird. She was doing really well, vocabulary expanding like crazy, and now she's gone back to the grunt-and-point version of communication. Actually, I have to be honest. That's not entirely true. I think what I'm dealing with is that for a while there, her vocabulary increased at some kind of exponential rate (and I have a feeling it still is). But, now it seems she's learned so much that she just repeats what you've said rather than trying to form sentences on her own.
I am feeling better (I know it's hard to tell from this post, but I really am). And, as promised, I will tell you about my animals (although not necessarily why they hate me). I guess the best order will be in the order we got them.
Fungo joined our family in April 2002. He's a black kitty with little white "socks" on all of his feet. Why is he named Fungo? Well, that's a long story. But not really, so I'll tell it. My husband and I were reading (and still do) a comic strip called Get Fuzzy. In the comic, a man named Rob has a dog named Satchel and a cat named Bucky. We had two cats that we named Satchel and Bucky. Well, Bucky T. Catt (as he likes to call himself in the comic strip) is often trying to fight the neighbor's ferret, Mr. Sqiggles. Satchel the dog makes friends with Mr. Sqiggles and finds out that he likes to be called Fungo. So, we kept with the theme and named him Fungo. (In case you were wondering, Bucky and Satchel went to live with my parents.)
Funny Fungo fact (try saying that five times fast): He's afraid of ceiling fans. He will come in the house (they stay in this cozy little storage room in our garage) and even if the fan is not on, he will slink down as close to the ground as he can get going underneath it. And we have ceiling fans in every room of our house.
Buddy joined our family in June 2002 (on my birthday actually). He came from the pound. He is (as near as we can tell) a mix between a golden lab and a greyhound. I know that it sounds like an odd combination (and it is), but he's really a pretty dog. He's got the long snout like a greyhound and the way curved in tummy (which looks really funny coming off his labrador rib cage). You should see this dog run. That's how you can tell he's part greyhound. He can run so fast, and he gets really close to the ground.
Fun Buddy fact: He was my birthday present. When I got home, I walked in and my husband was sitting on the couch. Buddy was curled up asleep next to him, so when I went to sit down next to my husband, I almost sat on him.
Bitsy joined our family in August 2002. She is what they call turtle colored (meaning that she is red, orange, black, brown, every color but white). She is a
Fun Bitsy fact: She's an attention hog. Try petting Fungo or one of the dogs around her, and you will incur the wrath of Bitsy.
Shadow joined our family in January 2004. My daughter was about 4 months old when we adopted Shadow at PetsMart. He's a black lab although you can see a bit of some kind of bird dog in his face. He is still just a puppy in a full grown dog's body (which makes it interesting sometimes). We have to feed Buddy and Shadow seperately because Buddy won't let Shadow eat. They play together, they sleep together, but when Shadow started looking thin, we started watching their eating habits, and Buddy will guard both bowls of food (even when we put them very far apart) so that Shadow can't eat. Now, Buddy has to come in while Shadow eats. Buddy will graze on food all day long and let it sit. Shadow wolfs his allotment down in 5 minutes.
Fun Shadow fact: He loves my daughter. Although no pets are allowed to play with her without an adult present, I think that he would be the one that I trust most. He likes to try and kiss her (which she hates), and I have to make sure that his tail doesn't bop her in the head, but he loves my baby girl.
Like I said, I'm feeling better now. In fact, I think I'll write a post on the 101 things my daughter does that makes me smile.
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