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Laying Down the Law

Well, we have heard (from several sources) that our girls are not the most well behaved and that we are not the most strict parents in the world.

That is the trouble with having nannies that feel at home with you and your family. While it is wonderful that they have become like family, just like family, they feel free to voice their thoughts on our parenting techniques. Sometimes that is not easy to swallow criticism, even the constructive kind. Even if you know that they are right.

In their defense, they have been fairly gentle about the "suggestions" and they do have to deal with our spawn on a regular basis. We do realize that this advice is coming from people with much more experience rearing children than we have and we are open to advice to an extent.

And thus we are cracking the whip on our older girls. (The poor twins are going to miss out on the whole lax, overwhelmed parents, so I can run amok and do as I please stage.) There will be no more back talk. (Reagan's favorite word is "NO!") There will be no more whining. (At least not without consequences.) There will be no more getting up at five and wandering about the house and playing. There will be no throwing food on the floor, hitting, pushing, throwing toys, changing the diner menu, and no candy before eating good food. There will be picking up of toys. There will be breakfast at nine, lunch at one, nap at two, diner at six, pick up toys at eight, brush teeth, get jammies on, read bedtime story and be in bed by eight-thirty.

We have been slowly easing into this (because it is harder for us than for them) and we hit them hard today with the full regime. By the end of the day I didn't get past the count of two before the behavior changed. However, there were MANY timeouts today. Kari has been sticking to the pickup toys, read a story and go to bed by eight-thirty for several days and it seems to be working pretty well.

I guess that we decided on this mostly because Hilda was getting a little frustrated. That and we know that now is the time to correct the behavior before its too late. It had been easier sometimes to let them get away with less than stellar behavior just to avoid a fight. With all that has been going on, the less crying the better. Hopefully, after a short period of time this will make life easier for all of us. If they know that there are repercussions for bad behavior there should be less bad behavior, right? We will see.

The twins have been a real bear today. I got home close to noon and not long after that Kari and Hilda went to the store, leaving me with all four. They left while all of them were napping and it was fine for a little while. Then Jordan woke up and it was still ok. I got Jordan to eat about four onces, which is quite a lot these days, before she burst into tears. Then Rylee got up and it was still ok, then Rylee woke Reagan up and it was still ok, then Madison woke up and I was still doing pretty well. But after that, things started to go down hill. I put Jordan down in front of the TV and tried to feed Madison. She would have none of it. I think she has only eaten six ounces all day. There were many tears and I don't know if it was sympathy for her sibling or what, but Jordan joined in and then Reagan and then Rylee. I got the big girls calmed and Madison semi pacified then switch Madison to the floor and held Jordan. The rest of the time that the women folk were gone was spent swapping back and forth between crying babies. Whichever was crying loudest got to be held.

I hope that the new reflux medication starts working soon.

There are a few issues with that. The medication takes about a week to start working (that is about where we are now) but the inflammation that the reflux causes can take two to three weeks to heal. So we won't really know if this has done the trick for about two more weeks. Also, the medication is in pill form. Well, the twins can't really swig them down with a glass of water and we have wasted about half of our supply just trying to get them to take the medication without vomiting.

The pills are supposed to dissolve in the mouth, but really they become a thick grainy paste after several minutes. I have learned that putting the pills into solution in a nipple doesn't work. Putting the pills into solution into a syringe doesn't work. Holding the pill under their tongue sort of works, but boy does it make them mad. And if any significant portion of the pill ends up on top of their tongue they will gag until they vomit and there goes another dose of expensive medicine onto the floor.

So it is still far from tranquil at the Spencer household, but maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

And Kari deals with this pretty much all day every day, so I could imagine why she might want to run away at times.

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