I saw “UP” last Friday and while I wasn’t expecting to ball my eyes out in a kids movie…I did for the first half hour.  It’s a great  movie.  See it.

I took a tour of Arizona State University today with my niece so I have  a lot of little random facts to share with you.

• They currently have 64,000 students, the second largest university population in the nation. 
• They are the ONLY major university in the Phoenix metropolitan area.  (So, not a lot of options for us here.)
• They have over 200 undergraduate majors to choose from.  Imagine trying to pick one if you are undecided!
• There are 4 campuses spread throughout the valley.
• Researchers at the University are responsible for inventing rubberized asphalt.  If you aren’t from here you’ve probably never heard of it but they pave our freeways with it to make them much more quite.  Which is nice if you live by one.  What’s even cooler is they repair themselves when they crack because it is made out of recycled rubber tires. 
• They are currently working on making rubberized asphalt for other areas of the country that actually get rain because apparently moisture is not it’s friend. 
• Right now they are working on creating a paper thin laptop that fits around your arm for the military.  How cool is that?
• I also learned that you should take your kids to these things when they are freshman’s in high school so they can see what awesome scholarships they can get if they keep up their GPA.
• Watching the parents tour the campus with their kids made me realize just how hard it’s going to be when it is my turn to send Eva to a big scary college campus.

Okay,  so I guess today isn’t really a tip but more of a plea for help.  Ever since my daughter was 8 months old she has had a problem hitting others.  Let me just add that I don’t know if her foster mom ever hit her but I highly doubt it.  I can tell you that me and my husband have never hit her, not even just a slap on the hand.  So part of my frustration is just not knowing where this comes from.

When it first started I figured okay this is just how she is letting out her frustration and it is normal.  I still think that but am just so fed up with it.  It’s been 20 months of dealing with this and trying to get her to stop and nothing is working!!!  She hits me, she hits her dad, she hits (and kicks) the dog, she hits her cousins, kids at the playground.  She doesn’t really have to be provoked very much, if a kid just thinks about playing with something that she wants she will immediately reach out and swat them in the face, or better pull their hair out, or even better grab their face and dig her finger nails into their skin.

I know it is her personality, she has a very strong one and know’s what she wants which will be good for when she’s older but how do I teach her to stop hurting others?  This is what I’ve done so far.

8-12 months old – Grabbed her hand and told her in a very stern voice “no hitting” then stroked her hand on my face and said “nice”

12-18 months old – Looked her in the eyes told her very sternly “NO NO HITTING” put her down and turned away for a couple of seconds and then dropped it.

18-24 months – Started using time out, talked to her about why hitting is bad, because it hurts and we don’t want to hurt people.  Have her apologize to whoever she hurt.  Taught her how to tell other kids “I want to play with that”.  Many times I would just have to remove her from the situation entirely

24 months – 28 months – At this point I don’t know what to do anymore.  I praise her when she is playing nicely.  I teach her how to introduce herself to other kids (which does work really well).  I use time in if we are at the playground and she does it to another kid.  I still just completely remove her from the situation if she does it 2 or 3 times.  It happens EVERY TIME we go to the playground and EVERY TIME she is around her little cousins.  If she does it to me at home I still give her a time out and that usually works as kind of a cooling off period for her and me.

Everybody I talk to says it will go away when she starts talking more.  She does talk pretty well already but I could see that sometimes she just can’t get the words out when she is playing with other kids.  The thing is sometimes I just break down in tears afterwords because I am just so fed up with it.  20 months I’ve been dealing with this and nothing has worked!

I’ve thought about completley ignoring it and just making sure that the other child is okay so that she can see she is not going to get any attention for it.  I find myself not able to follow through with that though.  Has anybody had any success with a hitter?  Or do I just hold out hope that it will stop by the time she is 3?

I love being a mommy.  I really do.  For 23 hours out of the day.  (There is that 1 hour I told you about on Tuesday.)

I love when my daughter looks at me with a concerned look on her face and says “Are you okay honey?”

I love wiping off her delicious little hands after she eats her lunch.

I love cheering her on when she learns something new.

I love her obsession with everything Disney.

I love watching her welcome her Daddy home every day with so much enthusiasm you would think it was Jesus himself walking through the door.

I love her fearlessness.

I love that she still has that intoxicating baby breath.

I still love kissing those squishy cheeks and her glorious glorious chin.

Y Water

Last week we got some samples of a new product for kids called Y Water.

There are 4 different flavors and each has important vitamins for something specific.  There is Muscle Water, Immune Water, Bone Water, and Brain Water.  All the ingredients are organic and the sweetener they use is evaporated sugar cane juice which is better for you then refined white sugar.

Eva loved every single one of the flavors but my favorites were the Immune and Brain water.  It’s funny because I think one of the reasons she loves them so much is the cool bottle they come in.  She wants me to put all of her drinks in these bottles now.  It’s been nice because I usually have to bribe her to drink anything but with these it is easy.

It does have 11 grams of sugar in each bottle but for Eva I just give her half of one a day and water it down a lot.  Just like I would do with juice.

I love that they are made with all organic ingredients and that the bottles are 100% recyclable.  Although your child can play with them over and over again so you don’t really need to throw them away anyway.  I also love that the plastic they are in is a number 1 which is the best kind of plastic to eat or drink out of in terms of BPA.

*Yes I know I use the word love a lot.  Got a problem with that?

Can you believe I’ve never been to the circus?  Well I am so excited it is coming to Phoenix and we are going the end of this month.

If you are planning on going go to ticketmaster.com and enter the coupon code MOM and you can get a 4 pack of tickets for $44!

This looks like so much fun I can’t wait to go!  I know Eva is going to love it.

It will be at the US Airways center from June 24th to June 28th.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is the best environment for my daughter.  Let me start by saying that in my young adulthood I never dreamed I would be a SAHM.  I always saw myself as a working mommy and denied any wrong in having a child in daycare.  I argued that daycare is good for children because they get to learn new things everyday and as long as they are getting quality time with mom and dad at night and on the weekends then it is the best situation.  I also just never pictured myself being happy as a SAHM, and I thought that a happy working mom is 100% better then an unhappy mom at home.

My daughter came along…I stayed home for 3 months…went back to work for 10 months…and have now been home with her for 8 months.  My reasons for staying home were complex.  Although I had a flexible work schedule I was bringing too much stress from my job home.  The families I worked with were becoming more and more challenging and the feeling of helplessness was breaking my heart every day.  I’ve always heard the average turn around time for people working in social services is 2 years per job.  I had been in my job for 3 and a half years.  I also thought I was going back to school because with my husbands job I was only going to have to pay 20%.  That is too long and depressing of a story to get into here but it didn’t work out.

Besides the stress of work and the promise of becoming a student again I just MISSED my daughter.  She was getting to be a really fun age…18 months…and every morning as I got her dressed my heart just ached to be home with her.  I longed for afternoon trips to the park and the zoo, story time at the library, lunch dates at the mall, snuggles after nap time.  Then there were some complications with her current daycare and that kind of made the decision for me.  Enrolling her in another daycare was out of the question.  Since she was adopted and had already been through 2 caregivers plus a daycare provider I just couldn’t put her through another big change so soon.

Now that it has been 8 months the monotony of staying home is really starting to wear on me.  Being home everyday is not all peaches and cream like I thought it was going to be.  You see because my 18 month old little monkey has turned into a defiant 2 1/2 year old.  Being the full time mom of a 2 year old takes creativity and patience…two things I do not possess in large amounts.  That’s not the only reason I’ve been questioning whether being at home with me is the best for my daughter though.  She is a very social person.  Slow to warm up but once she does she has a great time.  She loves being around  other kids, adults, and big crowds.  I took her to a playgroup last week and she clung to me the whole time.  I couldn’t help but think “Am I sheltering her too much?”  “Am I keeping her from all the wonderful experiences she could be having at a child care?”  I’m sure at a quality daycare the providers will not yell the way mommy sometimes does.  But then they will probably not cuddle her the way mommy does either.  “Does that mean I am coddling her then?”  “Am I depriving her of learning life lessons without the hovering helicopter mommy watching her every move?”  “Am I depriving myself of my career? Of feeling like I am making a difference in the world?”

I don’t have any answers.  Just questions.  Even with all the questions I am content with where I’m at.  I do not regret my decisions or what I’m doing right now I guess I just need to know where all of this is going.  I don’t want to stop thinking about my future as not just a mom but a woman who has something valuable to offer society, and I never want to stop learning.  At the same time I don’t want my daughter’s world to be confined to this house.  I want her to experience new things at a young age.  Nuclear and isolated families are something fairly new to humans.  I have a strong feeling that it was not meant to be this way.  We are social beings and children used to have a lot of people around to play and interact with.  Have we gone too far with wanting to shelter our children to our own little world where we can control everything?

I obviously don’t know the answer so what are your thoughts?