Adjustments

I don't even know what to title this... "Audrey Destroying Her Room," "How My Daughter Makes Me Angry," "Regression and Revenge." I decided on "Adjustments". Now that I have some distance from this issue, I can be a little more positive.

Going from a family of three to a family of four requires a lot of changes, especially for the "only" child. When we found out we were pregnant last year, we started to prepare Audrey for this transition. Originally, we were open to the idea of the kids sharing a room for a few reasons 1) to keep an upstairs guest bedroom and 2) economic reasons - with our changes of seasons we have to either cool or heat the room the majority of the year. We didn't know if it would work until after Elliott was born. We started by moving Audrey to a "big girl bed".

This was Audrey's first night (Nov '09) in her big girl bed which was very successful at first. She had been talking about getting one for awhile.

Next, we took away the pacifier since she was fixated on it and chewing them into pieces. We told her if she chewed them up we would throw them away and not buy any new ones.

First night without the pacifier

Dec '09

This transition into being pacifier-less led us to being nap-less. Audrey stopped napping and starting getting bored during her mandated "rest time".

We learned that the bordem and curiosity led to some messes and some more messes; it was a preview of what was to come. We picked our battles and let her get out of bed, read books, but removed the baby powder.

Jan '09

Taking out clothes was one of the phases. Though it was harmless, I did not enjoy our 1/2 hr clean-ups but, I was thankful it wasn't poop or baby powder.

March '10

March '10

I liked the rare days like this!

May '10

In May, Elliott was born...

Audrey regressed a little (accidents, crawling and baby-talk) and acted out by destroying her room and her mom's patience. Elliott was in our room in the co-sleeper for the first 3-4 months and then in the guest room for the next few months since we didn't have time to make any room changes. Audrey got into the habit of climbing into his crib and putting all her bedding into it. She even shredded the foam to his wedge pillow, tore up a stack of diapers, and emptied a thing of wipes as "craft time."

June '10

She discovered Elliott's clothes and would play dress up

... and then things got worse...

I could smell the baby powder coming up the stairs.

There was a fine layer EVERYWHERE!

June '10

I knew to lock up certain things, so we tried many different child proofing locks... Audrey would figure them out by watching me and get into stuff during her rest time. We ended up going with the magnetic lock, which usually worked well... unless tired me would forget the key or she would steal the key while I was changing the boy- those times were my fault and I paid the price of the clean up.

I stopped taking pictures in front of her because I felt that it was reinforcing her acting out by giving her my attention with my camera... Audrey, covered with ointments would have a long time out in the bathtub, while I could clean up the room and grab a few shots.

June '10

August '10

This was Desitin and a self-changed poopy pull-up.

September '10

Breaking the mobile validated the decision to move Audrey

into her own room and was the final straw for me.

We just needed a free weekend to make the change.

My Strong-Willed Child

A few days after we got back from the CA trip, Cedulie (my mother-in-law) blessed us with taking Audrey for a few nights so that we could move her room.

Stay-tuned for the pictures of the new room!