Category: Jonah

These past few weeks have been a little crazy in the Rapson house. Since January 9, Jonah’s started preschool, we’ve had like 18 polar vortexes, I’ve had two outpatient surgeries (one oral and one ladypartsish), and we’ve taken Jonah to a dairy-free diet in addition to gluten-free. Because he was having ALL sorts of trouble with his poops, poor kid. But I won’t go into that because Emily would totally remove my admin privileges from this blog. AND, to top it off, we’ve moved him to a big boy bed this week.

So anyway, what I am saying is – there’s been a lot of change/deviation from routine for our family, especially for a three-year-old.

And as I wrote earlier, he’s been adjusting to all this change by being pretty crabby at home. And he’s three. You know, the age at which the Terrible Two’s take some crack cocaine and the kind of steroids that induce rage and have a party for a year. So I should probably cut the kid some slack.

But that cut. It’s one I have a terribly hard time making.

The truth is, I have the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder from Sophie’s developmental delays. I attributed some of her delays and behaviors to her being crazy, stubborn, and strong-willed, only to realize rather late that whoops! – she actually did have some social/behavioral delays mixed in there. So from them on, every irregularity was cause for worry. And the truth is, some of it was just her personality. Sophie being Sophie. And some of it wasn’t. And I couldn’t really tell the difference.

Now Jonah is three, and going through some behavioral stuff, which is really not that bad, and probably very understandable, and his overall delays are not even close to what Sophie’s were.

But I can’t relax about it. I worry about every little fuss, every fit, every refusal to communicate what he wants.

I can’t cut him any slack, and I can’t cut myself any slack. I choose to worry. I don’t want to choose it but I do. I don’ t know how not to.

If he has a great day, I have a great day, and if he doesn’t, I don’t.

But overall he is doing so well. 

And I am SO proud of him. And I am thankful for that.

I just wish I could rest in it.

 

I have some good news, and I have some bad news, folks.

The good news is that Jonah loves school. Like, excited to go, runs into class without looking back at me, and when he’s off for a milliion days in a row because of the Polar Whoretex Vortex, asks to go back.

The bad news is that since he’s started school, he’s been a holy terror at home. Holy. TERROR. He’s whiny, grumpy, fussy, and completely unreasonable. He would rather fuss and scream about something before asking. He gets set off by little things and has a hard time calming down.

What has happened to my easy-going boy?

My guess is, since Joshua grew horns and red eyes for about 8 weeks after he started kindergarten (and ohemegee you have to click that link to see how CUTE AND LITTLE he was! And also, that people once actually commented on this blog.) and since Sophie DIDN’T SLEEP (that. was. horrible.) for about 8 weeks after she started preschool, that we are just in for a few weeks of grumpy transition time.

I’m trying not to freak out about it…but it has made my life much more difficult these past couple weeks. He even threw a giant fit at speech therapy yesterday (which he had to miss two weeks in a row because of the aforementioned weather tramp) which he has not done since like, his 2nd session 8 months ago. Because he LOVES speech. His SLP was like….”Uh, who is this kid?” It was bad.

So, who has advice? What should I do? Toddler tranquilizers? Hypnosis? Drink lots of Mountain Dew and eat lots of chewy Sweet Tarts (for me, not him) until this too passes? Please tell me you’ve all been here before and we’ll both come out ok!