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Saturday, July 03, 2010

Grandma in Charge

Due to my circumstances of being put on strict bed rest I let my mother in law know that her help would be greatly appreciated and she dropped everything to arrive the next day!

Somehow Charlotte seems to sense this is not a typical visit - she knows somethings up. Her mom is acting different, not holding her as much, not picking her up at all, not changing her diaper, etc. Mema is doing these things and while she loves her Mema she's decided to challenge her on everything!. Meal time result in screaming tantrums and diaper changes involve 10 minutes of screaming writhing torture.

Is she testing grandma? Or just really mad that mom seems to have stopped taking responsibility for all things food, diaper and nap related?

Regardless, there is a new social order and it may be in place for 3-4 weeks while we wait for little guy to be born and work him into our routine. Charlotte needs to accept her grandmother as a "co-parent", not just a play mate and it may involve lots of screaming at first but we will find a way to work this out.

Is it hard to step back and let family discipline and care for Charlotte? Yes and no - at this point I'm grateful for the help and to be honest was having a very difficult time dealing with her tantrums. A flailing child is hard to manage at almost 9mo pregnant and it's nice to be able to take a break.

I think the thing I miss the most is alone time doing cool things outside with Charlotte but we'll get back to that in a few months - well maybe not alone time but definitely have time outside in the fall and we will develop a new routine that's fun for us.

2 comments:

crazywildberry said...

Cant' say that I am not a bit jealous. It must be nice to have someone who can drop everything as your mil can. Anyhow, Charlotte is bound to fight. But if you and Mike back your mil up, she will just have to accept that Mema is in charge. It will be a nice time for the two of them to bound. Call me if you need to talk or whatever. I miss you!

R. Molder said...

She's going through a "showing off" stage. Mike and I went out for 4 hours today and when we returned Charlotte had eaten a ton of food for Mema and was mid-way through a bath. As Mema took her to the bedroom to dry off the fireworks started and in no time she was naked butt in the air in downward dog pose. Mike and I left the room to get her bottle ready and she looked up and said "where'd they go?" and completely calmed down until we walked back into the room and then the dramatics started again. So yeah - it's a bunch of show!