My complex child

I may have written something about this before, but we call Deacon the puppy and Roman the cat. Deacon loves people, new situations, and everything FUN! He eagerly hugs and kisses and shows enthusiasm for most things. He will occasionally fall into a moment of hysteria if he is particularily disapointed or tired, but for the most part he is a good natured kid. We always know what he is thinking and feeling.

Roman is more crafty, more content to be on his own and is more difficult to read. Of course, some of that is due to him being younger with a smaller vocabulary. His speech has just been exploding however, so we are getting a lot more "clues" into who is and what he is thinking.

He hit me yesterday, for no apparent reason. I sent him to his room. He went quite readily, I think he sensed he needed some alone time to cool down. He came out after 5 min. I asked him if he was ready to apologize and play nicely. He crossed his little arms over his chest and said, "I still mad." Then he turned around, walked upstairs to his room and shut his door behind him. A few minutes later he came out of his room, apologized and went off to play. It just amazed me how he was able to clearly pinpoint his emotion, know that was HIS emotion that I couldn't control, and seemed to really understand that time alone was what he still needed (or was going to get!).

Deacon has always been a literalist. He does play stuff like Super heroes and house and stuff, but not to the extent that Roman does. Roman is all about imaginary play and is content to have his cars talk to each other and drive around together. That is not exciting enough for Deacon. Lately, though, Roman decides who he is going to be (Batman, Diego, Jay-Jay, Baby sheep , Captain Elliot) and then Deacon helps him assign everyone else to be ancillary characters. I get to be Alicia, Tracy, Mommy Sheep and Princess Eloise; Deacon gets to be the second best characters (2nd best from Roman's perspective) and the baby gets left with the weak and uninteresting characters- basically whoever is left.

But I have learned to use this imaginary play to my benefit. Interestingly enough, Roman may complain about using the potty chair when we are mommy and Roman, but when we are mommy sheep and baby sheep he is amazingly more compliant! Probably it is because I talk sweeter to him when I am mommy sheep and I talk about his wooly coat etc. He laps up the attention.

The 2 of them certainly clamor for attention in different ways. Deacon demands it with loud voice, ideas and his constant presence. When Roman is naughty, Roman is asking for attention. I have been trying to really spend 1:1 time with him, just cuddling and doing stuff that he likes to do. He seems to respond to that. Just like Deacon loves it when Noah or I sit down and do activities and play with him.

Now, the problem is that there is also a 14 month old in the picture that is INTO EVERYTHING! He has really started exerting himself and when he is not sleeping, he insists on being the center of attention- throwing himself dramatically on the floor, eating garbage and screaming loudly.

So today he was in his crib, supposed to be napping. I had told the older boys we could build a zoo out of legos. Deacon and I were working on it with great enthusiasm, when I noticed that Roman had slipped out. I heard the bathroom faucet briefly, but didn't think too much of it because Roman is notorious for liking to clean his toys. I heard the faucet again though, so I thought I had better check...even though I hated to leave Deacon in the middle of an activity that we were doing together. It seems like I am always having to go take care of one of the younger ones when we are trying to do something together. Anyway, I got upstairs to the bathroom and there was water everywhere! He had filled the sink, but then put a large toy boat in the sink, "to float it", but it was not a floatable boat so it had displaced all of the water ALL OVER! So I had to clean that up. On the plus side, the bathroom counter and floor and sink all got washed out of the deal!

Boy...taking care of 3 children and their different needs and personalities and conflicts is a lot of work!

By the way, on a side note- I have shopped and designed a supper menu for this week. So far I am 2 for 2 meals that were healthy! I will let you know at the end of the week how it went! Preparation is the problem for me- thawing the meat, having the ingredients etc. So last night I made Taco salad, but I browned 3 times the meat and froze it for other meals. And I put away the left over chips right away so they would be available for a different meal and not just snacked on all evening. Tonight was kabobs. I cut up a lot of chicken, marinated half of it for our supper and froze the rest in kabob size pieces so all I need to do next week is thaw and add the marinade!

Anyway, I have decided to conquer cooking healthy (at least kind of healthy) meals. I like challenges, so this is my newest one. I think I can do it :) I know all of this stuff, I have recipes...I just need to make myself do it!

Alright, this was kind of a weird post...but I just have a lot of different things on my mind tonight, I guess!