Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

Well, I'm back from my vacation in Sammamish!  It's fun to go out and see my family, but at the same time it's wonderful to be back home.  I have my own bed, my own food, my own neighborhood, my own schedule ... Carmen loved staying up late partying with her uber-exciting aunts and uncles.  She also loved sleeping in and napping right before dinner.  We're still slowly adjusting her schedule back to normal. ;)

I really appreciated Elder Cook's talk in Conference on Saturday morning.  I have to wait until the transcriptions come out online before I can do a lot of analysis on the talk, but I loved how he talked about how valuable mothers are and acknowledged all kinds of mothers (those who work, those who stay at home, and those who are single, etc) and praised them.  I felt appreciated and loved, even though motherhood tends to be undervalued (read: unpaid!!)  I liked how he talked about telling a nonmember about women serving in the Church and she said, "The last thing women need is another unpaid job."

I've loved and valued work and education so much in my life that it's sometimes hard for me to keep things in perspective.  When Carmen was a baby, I had a hard time feeling like I was much more than an unpaid robot.  She'd lay there (and cry most of the time ... she was very colicky) and my job was to simply be there and hold and comfort her and feed and change her until ... I don't know.  Until she needed something else.  I felt like I had very little to offer her different from what anyone could offer her.

Now, however, life is great!  Ever since she started noticing the world and crawling and walking and wanted to know things, I feel like I've been able to do a lot and I'm thrilled to be a mom!  (So things got much better after 5 or 6 months, then after a year, then after 15 months, then after 18 months, and now she's turning 2 next month!  WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TIME?!)  She is so expressive and loves to talk and we share such sweet moments together.

It's been wonderful to watch Sadie every morning.  I love watching her learn and grow, too.  Today, she told me how she can count by 5's and 10's to 100.  She told me she doesn't know how to read yet, but I told her at least she knows how to spell her name and loves to look at books together so at least that's a start.  She told me the other day that her mom gave her permission to get her ears pierced when she asked, but has decided she doesn't want to get her ears pierced because it will be painful.  She and Carmen are learning how to get along together and I get to practice more of my teaching and mediating skills.

I'm enjoying the book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child.  It talks about empathizing with your children and helping them learn to address and deal with their strong emotions instead of dismissing or demeaning them.  It requires a lot of intimacy with and attention to your child, so ... I guess I feel really thankful I have the opportunity to stay at home and develop that kind of a relationship with my children without having other major distractions in my life.  There is nothing else I'm doing that is more important than teaching my children to be the best they can be!  (And yet, I find room and time to do so much and my life is full!)


A few Carmenisms:

Carmen put a sticker onto a piece of paper then tried to pull it off.
"Stuck!!" she complained, surprised.

A few months ago, we got a free broken key from a locksmith.  It's got buttons on it.  Carmen found it in the toy basket and started pushing the buttons.  "Beep, beep!" she said (because that's the noise cars make when you lock and unlock them.)  She walked over to the window and looked outside, to see if any of the cars were reacting to her key.  "Papa's key." she said.  (Grandpa has a key like that to his Honda Pilot.)  This is proof that Carmen loves Grandpa Brad and pays attention to him.

Sometimes, Carmen blows her nose with toilet paper, but more often than not, she rips it up into tiny pieces and sticks the pieces up her nose.  Then I hear her snort and sniff for a few minutes and she goes, "Stuck!  STUUUUCCKKK!!!"
(PS. I remove the toilet paper with tweezers to make the extraction process as excruciating and obnoxious as possible.)

Last night, our friends blessed their baby, Phoebe.  Carmen loves babies and has been picking up names really well this past month.  While we were getting into the car, she sat in the back seat talking to herself about how excited she was to go see "Baby Pee-Pee."  She also learned our friend Sterling's first name: "Durling."  IT'S ADORABLE.

I guess while I'm talking about names, I'll have you know she calls Marissa "Sissa", gets ridiculously excited about our friend Ray (and can say his name no problem), and loves her friend Braxton who is 6 months older than she is.  She calls him "Bobby".  One time we were playing at Braxton's house and the conversation went something like this:
Braxton: Carmen, I am not Bobby.  I'm Braxton.
Carmen: Bobby!
Braxton: No, Braxton!
Carmen: Brrrrrrrrrrrr-obby!
Me: *lol*

I love hearing Carmen talk to herself.  She walks around the house and plays with her toy kitchen or her tool set and talks about what she's going to cook or fix.  She carries her babies around and changes their diapers and puts medicine on their ouchies.  (She's got a sad history of diaper rashes and so she is quite familiar with Bordeaux's Butt Paste.)  When I was a kid, I'd put my stuffed animals in time-out and spank them for trying to leave.  Carmen kisses her babies and gives them medicine.  Hmm.

Perceptions of reality ...

I had an interesting moment earlier today.

Carmen loves babies.  I found this "Baby Slide Show" on YouTube and Carmen watches it daily.  "BABIES!!!!" she squeals.

Today, Sadie (the kindergartner I watch) started watching the slide show and was interested in all of the cute Anne Geddes photos.

"Whoa, does someone really take these pictures?" she asked.
"Yes." I responded.
"Of dead babies?????" She seemed really concerned about this.
"What?  No!  They're not dead babies.  They're just sleeping.  She takes pictures of babies while they're sleeping."
"Then why did that one have wings?"
"Because they're dressed up in costumes.  They're sleeping.  She dressed them up and took pictures of them while they were sleeping.  See, sometimes they're just sleeping, other times they have wings, other times they're dressed like flowers ... they're not dead.  Just sleeping."
"Oh."

Phew.

To think Sadie could've grown up thinking all those cute Anne Geddes photos are dead babies .... O__o;

Things Kindergartners Notice

If you lack self-esteem, you probably shouldn't spend too much time with kindergartners.  They notice lots of things and say just about everything on their mind.  But if you do have good self-esteem, they help you laugh and smile a lot.

For example, these are a few of the things Sadie has figured out:
"You wear makeup to cover the red spots on your face!"
"Hm, you don't look like you've put your makeup on yet!"
"Your hair is usually crinkly unless you straighten it."
(She comes over at 8:45.  I usually have the kids play in my room while I finish getting ready.)
"Your vacuum looks weird."
"Did you put water in this juice?"
"Wow, when we play, we make a big mess!"
"I don't want to color on both sides of the page!  I want a new piece of paper!" (we've been printing out Christmas coloring pages, and today I asked her to bring back the page she had colored on so I could print on the other side.  I guess we're not born eco-friendly. ;)  )
"Am I allowed to use those crayons?" (We have several boxes of crayons around the house, and most of the crayons in this particular box are still pointy, so I never use the newer crayons ... she caught on to me!)

She's tons of fun to be around and talk to.  There's never a dull moment, and Carmen ADORES her.

Now the biggest drama is that Sadie really likes Carmen's favorite baby doll.  And by Carmen's favorite baby doll, I mean FAVORITE THING EVER IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE.  She carries her baby around with her everywhere, shares her sippy and food with the baby, carries around a little medicine cup and fills it with water from the cat bowl and feeds it to the baby, wraps the baby in a blanket (or a washcloth if that's all she can find) and carries her around, walks the baby around in her play stroller/car seat, asks me to put the baby's hat on 3,938,281 times a day, and wishes she could take the baby into the bath with her.  I sit the baby on the counter and say the baby can watch Carmen bathe, and she seems to be okay with that.

Another random fact about bath time: we have this little toy walrus Cat gave us for Christmas last year and Carmen has re-discovered it.  According to Carmen, walruses roar like dinosaurs.  It's awesome.

Sadie

There's a kindergartner I watch in the mornings and take to school.  Her name is Sadie.

(Long background story ... her dad lost his job at the beginning of the year, found a job at a place that couldn't hire him, and had to find ANOTHER job.  All in, like, a month.  I didn't have Sadie while he was looking for a job, because he could drive her to school.  In November, while I was in Washington, another neighbor looked after Sadie.  Now I've had her back since December 1.  It looks like this new job could afford to keep him, and I hope it stays that way!!)

Anywho.  I love Sadie.  She's awesome.  I'm sure she's not particularly nicer or cooler or smarter or more interesting than your average kindergartner, but she's awesome because she's kind of mine, you know?  You love whom you serve.

She's the youngest of four in her family, so I think maybe she likes that she's the older kid when she's at my house.  Carmen loves having an older sister.  Yesterday, Carmen made a special effort to learn Sadie's name (it sounds kind of like "see"/"seedie"/"say") and just loved spending time around her.  We all made a trip to Costco with Dorie Joseph to order a cake for Jake Joseph's birthday party, and it's cool because the monster shopping carts have TWO seats.  Carmen beamed the whole time, chanting Sadie's name and putting her arm around Sadie.  By the end of the trip, Sadie looked at me pleadingly and said, "Can you PLEASE make her stop touching me?"

It was awesome.

Mark told me about two little girls in the older Nursery class who are good friends.  One of the girls, Izzy, is a bit more clingy than her friend, Kaylie (Kaylee? I don't know.)  We take the kids to Primary at the end of Nursery, to prepare them for Sunbeams next year.  Mark said that at the end of Nursery, Kaylie started asking Mark if he could possibly make Izzy sit somewhere else so Izzy would leave Kaylie alone.  Such a cute age!!  Dah!

Carmen cries whenever Sadie gets out of the car to go to kindergarten and I can't distract her from her sadness.  It's so cute.  "But Carmen, she has to go to school!  She has to go to kindergarten!  We'll see her tomorrow!"  "Nooooooo Seeeeddiiieeeeeeeee!"  "I'm sorry, she has to go to school!  Would you like to go to school, too?"  "Uh-huh!!!"

That must be what it's like for younger siblings to see their beloved older siblings go off and have exciting adventures at school.  They get stuck at home with boring ol' mom and the boring ol' cats and boring ol' laundry and cleaning and all that other boring stuff that goes on at home.  ROUGH.

More Sadie stories tomorrow.

You didn't do ANYTHING yesterday!

I watch a friend's kindergartner in the mornings before school so she can go to work.  Today, she wanted to go visit a park and I told her we had to stay inside and play this morning because I had to sort some laundry and clean the bathrooms.  For some reason, she enjoys watching me do chores ... even though I put in Sleeping Beauty for her so she'd have something to do while I got my stuff done.

"Yeah, you didn't do any of your chores yesterday." she agreed.

She's right.  I DIDN'T do any chores like that yesterday.  We just played all day long.  At least that's what it felt like to her because I kept her sufficiently distracted while I did "the invisible things Moms do" (as my mother used to say.)

She and Carmen played out front with some balls and a puddle while I vacuumed out the car.  We took Mark to work and went to Grease Monkey to drive through the car wash.  (Carmen hasn't been through a car wash since probably a year ago ... she hated the noises from the machines and the fact that she couldn't see out through any of the windows because of the soap.  Poor kid!)  Then we came home and I cleaned the kitchen and washed some laundry while the kids had lunch.

There are other kids who come over to my house and say things like, "Oh, do you just clean all day long?" and "Man, your house is so messy!" when they come over 15 minutes after Carmen has woken up from her nap and pulled out all of her toys.  It's hard to explain to them, "No, seriously, kid, it will only take 2 minutes to clean this up."


It makes me realize we have very, very little control over what little things our kids will focus on and remember.  Apparently, I either work like a dog (slaving away in the bathroom this morning!!) or I play all day long (vacuuming the car while playing outside yesterday!)  It just depends on what day you walk in on me and what happens to stick in your memory.

And this kid either hates or loves what I'm eating for lunch or what song happens to be playing on the radio or whatever.  Luckily her mom tells me she has nothing but nice things to say about me. =p


I used to get all worried reading parenting books and feeling like I have to do everything "right" or risk psychologically scarring my kids.  What a load of crap.  One person's idea of what "perfect" is could be completely different from another's perspective of "perfect" is, and the "right" thing to do with a kid is different depending on the kid and the situation.  I've decided to stop worrying.  I'm just going to do my best and do what feels best to ME and forget about what anyone else thinks!  My kids could think I'm crazy, my neighbors could think I'm strange, but the fact is nobody knows all of the little nuances of my life and why I do what I do.  We all do what works for us and make compromises where we need to.  My husband can attest to that - we do things way differently from how our neighbors might split things up but we're happy with the way we work things out!

My ultimate goal is to be happy and to help others be happy, too.  Especially my kids. ;)  Each one is going to have their own special and different needs and preferences, so I figure I'll just figure it out as they come along.  There's no need to preemptively stress out about anything.