What the Hell is Happening?

Life…life is happening. And in the hustle and bustle of life, the sleepless nights, the crazy busy weekend, the drop off and pick ups from school, and the toddler fits two things happened.

One, I had zero time to write anything on my blog. My family will always come first. So if there is an extended time without posts just know I’ll be back when life is a bit less chaotic.

Two, I forgot everything I know about toddlers and their big feelings. We haven’t done an activity or learning time since the beans and rice. 😳 That is hard for me to admit because I love doing things like that with Elowyn. Since my whole career was in Early Childhood I find it to be a very important thing. If our choice is to keep her home, it’s my job to be teaching her things. Since the beans and rice activity her big feelings have turned into giant feelings and everything is a battle. Then a few days ago I had my nieces at night and Ireland wanted to color. So we all sat at the table and colored. Elowyn spent 20 minutes flipping through a coloring book making one mark on every page. It seems small. It seems unimportant, but her brain was engaged. And that very night for the first time in weeks, she ate dinner. She ate a lot of dinner.

I am not exaggerating when I say she had barely eaten in two weeks. A bite here and nibble there. Then fits galore. All day long. We were stuck in a vicious cycle of daily battles. All it took to break this cycle was coloring. Something that takes two minutes to set out, with minimal mess, and minimal supervision needed.

So, we are eating better, our mood is better, and everyone is generally much happier for the last few days. I definitely didn’t find the cure all for toddler fits, I promise they still happen in abundance. But for Elowyn, brain stimulation is just as important as getting to run around outside or taking a nap. In the chaos of life I forgot that. So….the next few posts I’m going to focus on quick easy activities that might help get a child out of a funk and let you get the dishes done at the same time!

I ordered more ink for the printer, I’ve sharpened the colored pencils, I’ve stocked the art closet. I’m ready to get back to what I know!