The New Kali and The New Bedroom

It's been a few weeks since my last update. Things have been busy around here. Last weekend, Kali attended her first birthday party. She and Carson had a great time (Happy Birthday, Aubrey!). We were a little worried about how she would act when it was present opening time ... she still thinks that everything is hers. She was very good, just sitting and watching the gift unwrapping ceremony without even as much as a pouty lip ... until Aubrey opened the gift that we brought. I hid the gift from both kids until the day of the party, but then I had to take it out to wrap it ... she saw it! Naturally, she thought it was hers. When this one was unwrapped, she jumped up and wanted to play with it. Aubrey's mom was kind enough to let the kids look at it and play with it a little, but then Kali seemed to want to take possession of it and we had to take her away from the toy. Surprisingly, there was a small amount of crying and then it was over! Wow! What a relief!





We decided to move both kids out of the cramped little 10 x 10 bedroom that they were sharing. Jordan had been in the bigger 12 x 17 bedroom, but since he is moving to Austin now (and has been in WI with his grandparents all summer anyway), it was time to give the 2 kids the bigger room and turn the smaller room into the guest/Jordan-when-he's-home-from-school room. I am a BIG fan of color on the walls. Remember that commercial (probably for Home Depot paint or something) where the husband and wife are standing in a white room and the wife looks around and asks, "What do these walls say to you?" and the husband replies "They say clean and fresh and white"? Then she comes back with something like, "They are saying that someone doesn't have an imagination!" I love that commercial! That is how I feel. I know that when we build our new house in a few years, I will have to paint the walls because we won't be able to afford a painter ... they like to come in with a big bucket of one color and spray the whole house the same color. I like every room to be different! Anyway, I digress ... I allowed Carson to choose the colors for the new room. Kali doesn't care ... she's just going to repeat whatever Carson says anyway. He chose pink and red ... yes, my sweet little 4 year old BOY chose pink (his favorite color right now) and red (his mommy's favorite color). I did everything I could to try to sway him to colors a little more genderly (is that a word?) neutral. He would not be swayed. So I bought pink and red ... at least I got to pick out the shades of these colors! I pondered on the colors for a while trying to determine what I was going to do with these colors. Their old room was green and blue stripes, yes painted. But I didn't want to go with stripes again ... been there done that! Then I saw a photo and it all snapped together! I added purple (thanks Mom!) to tie the two colors together and voila! New kids room!!



I am so proud of this room. It works for both a boy and a girl! Carson is really into "centers" because that is what the different play areas are called at daycare. Now their bedroom has a "play center" and a "reading center". And taking the bunkbeds apart was THE thing to do ... Kali has slept through the entire night from the first night in their new room. Maybe she doesn't feel so confined anymore ... she was sleeping on the lower bunk. And Carson loves hanging out in his "reading center" just looking at book after book. And then I had a great time picking out the new color and painting their old bedroom to make it a guest room. Rick told me, "You really didn't want to move them in here ... you just wanted an excuse to paint again!"

We have noticed a subtle change in Kali over the past few weeks. Things have gotten noticeably easier with her. Her defiance seems to be going away finally. Maybe she has finally accepted that we are her new parents and we are in charge?? Maybe she has finally decided that she likes this new family? Who knows, but she is definitely different. She still has her moments, but then so does Carson ... and he has a whole lot more moments than he ever had before now that he has some competition in the house! It's a good thing that the first followup home study is at 3 months and not 3 weeks ... I'm afraid they would have seen Kali sitting in time-out quite a bit! I guess they know what they are doing, waiting 3 months for things to settle. Time-out is quickly becoming what it should be ... the occasional discipline method, not the every 20 minute discipline method. Although, we're beginning to think that maybe she misses time-out. There are times when Kali just won't give up. When she gets mad and starts to pout, she usually wants to make sure you know that she's upset ... she'll kind of push something with a little "take that" grunt, or swat at something ... any little action to show us that she's ticked off. We try to give her a break and just tell her not to do that or show her something to steer her in a different direction. Distraction usually works well! But she just can't let it go. She just keeps pushing and pushing until she's done something that really warrants the time-out. I know that they say "negative attention is better then no attention at all", but this little girl receives LOTS of attention from both of us and her brother, and most of it is good. So why does she push you into forcing the time-out?

Oh well ... I guess once a diva, always a diva! I said it last night ... she is 100% sweetheart 99% of the time! She does two things now that just crack us up ... when she does something by herself, she is so proud of herself, says "I did it!" and gives you the open palm saying "High five!". And the other thing ... her new name is "Me too!" or "I do it myself!" These are her two new favorite sayings!!