I was going to go with “another day” for the title of this post. Then I was reminded of the song in WMTC’s upcoming musical (shameless plug) Our House. Tomorrow’s just another day is the song at the end of act 1, where a bunch of prisoners are grumping about the jail marching around singing doo-be-doo.
We have to sing this with the utmost gusto, but also maintain the sullen withdrawn features of a miserable felon.
To mirror real life, there have been times where I think I SHOULD be exhibiting burn out vibes, although carry on the parenting lark with full gusto. Don’t get me wrong I get burn out BIG time, usually around a particular time of the month… But it can also happen when suddenly I’m totally overwhelmed by the huge piles of laundry or the kitchen having been taken over by a cosy whirlwind that seems to have struck. Not to mention the odd wrapper strewn across the floor, or random craft items that seem to multiply overnight.
I know, I know, it’s the never ending story for every parent! “We’re all in this together” springs to mind, good old High School Musical!
Generally, I stay ok though. Touch wood!
Carrying on the teeth saga, bedtime only took a measly 2.5 hours this evening, AND I’ve already eaten. 8pm we finished an episode of GBBO (we’re only on ep3 of the latest series so shh ok!) and I asked for a little tidy up, as we have the 2 year old nephew coming for the day tomorrow (woohoo!). Of course nothing got done by Regi because doing ANYTHING that is asked of her is a huge undertaking (It’s called demand avoidant, no she’s not rude).
After Penny went upstairs I managed to get Regi in pyjamas because she wanted to do a transition video. We do this about once a week. She’ll get into her swing fully clothed, start spinning, then I pause the video, she gets out and gets her pyjamas on, gets back in the swing, and carries on spinning and I press record again to reveal a superman sort of clothes changing effect. Anything to do with creating videos is a big win. Works 100% of the time we use it.
As I knew teeth was going to be another battle I sorta pottered around doing bits of washing and tidying, while occasionally mentioning getting teeth done, or heading upstairs, each time met with a curl up with a big blanket on the floor. If I can make her giggle at these points then it resets her stress levels to some degree. Cue silly voices and funny faces which still work 80% of the time. We finally made it in the bathroom and I spent some time being silly about the different types of toothbrush we could go for today. She went to fetch her whiteboard so she could write down answers – this is another coping strategy. She has a white board, a chalk board, a light up neon pen board all for using when she can’t tell me what’s going on and wants to say things by writing them or drawing things. Sometimes she draws pictures in Dom’s super fluffy rug. Usually a sad face or the word “no”.
Today she wrote “what can I do with my liiiiiife”
She knows her teeth are bad, and it stresses her out. She regularly gets cross about why baby teeth even exist if they have to fall out, because it’s far too stressful.
She wrote a couple of other things before I took the board and drew a cute carrot holding a baby. Then she drew a ghost. We called it Michael. Then I drew a ghost, with a hamburger, fries and a drink balancing on its head. Kept it random and not connected to teeth. Once we’d had a further giggle adding dreadlocks to the ghost and a funky hippy dress, I drew a little table that had 6 squares for 6 teeth. I suggested that she brushes the 4 teeth that I cleaned yesterday, and she lets me clean 2 new teeth. We agreed on 4 hairs per tooth, and 6 for the new ones. Once they were done they got crossed out. Skipped off to bed.
No duvet at all tonight, that needs to get squashed out the way at the end of the bed, but doubling up on the weighted blanket on her feet so it feels like I’m sitting on them, which is what she likes to do on the sofa.
I’m off for a Bailey’s! Goodnight : )
Just insight 