Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Immature

Immature is the word of the day around here. Imani asked me today why Akila likes to watch Sesame Street and Caillou. I reminded her that Akila is more like a 4 year old than an almost 11 year old. Oh yeah, Imani said.

She also loves shows like High School Musical, but most often, she chooses shows that preschoolers like. It is helpful to remind me that she is a preschooler basically. Although there are many of her behaviors she had when she was in preschool, that I long for now. Like she did not call names, hit, kick or get so incredibly mean.

Mean. That is a word I have been using a lot lately. She is so mean. Mean to the other kids, the neighbors, Michael and I. She just seems so mean and angry all the time. It is hard to be calm and patient when you see her being so mean.

Another constant battle we have had for years, is putting on lotion. I have tried many creative ways of doing it (glitter lotion, letting her choose lotion at girly stores-although this stuff is not good for dry skin, but better than no lotion-, massaging her with the lotion, tried it every time of the day, etc.), but have not had much success. She has incredibly dry skin naturally, and now with summer, and swimming, it is out of control. She has had a cold or allergies for over 3 weeks, and her nose has been raw all the way down to her lip.

She refuses lotion. It is to the point, where she and I just had a lovely wrestling match to get her lotioned up. She raged, hit, ran, and I just stuck with her. There is lotion all over my room (where the struggle began), on my bed, tables. But I got a lot on her, she was wiping it off with a towel when I left to go compose myself, but some good stuff should have soaked in first. If I was a stronger woman, I would gather up the courage to go into this battle each day. But I'm not. I pick and choose my fights. But we are close to the point of bloody skin from dryness. Time to fight I guess.

5 comments:

GB's Mom said...

:( Sorry you don't have a choice.

dorothy said...

Soooooo glad to hear I dont have the only anti-lotion kids in town...ashy city!

Lisa said...

My son is like this too. He is very fair-skinned (he's caucasion) and his skin always has this rashy pink look and tiny dry bumps all over it. Every single lotion we've ever tried has made him scream in agony (drama-boy) that it's BURNING. I think it's a sensory issue because he has many of those already. You're right though - you learn to pick your battles EACH DAY if need be depending on your tolerance level and their moods. Hang in there - I have a houseful of immature kids, I keep thinking they'll outgrow certain things but that hasn't happened. I see the same exact things in them at 12 that I saw at 4 and yet all of the yucky new stuff they keep picking up along the way to their new chronological age.

Anonymous said...

If she takes baths rather than showers you could slip some baby oil in the water. :)

Betsy said...

Did Akila use the sample lotion I gave her a few months ago?

If that worked she can have more - Aaron always brings some home after he is on a trip so we have LOTS :)

Or I can just give you the ones I have and you can try them out :)

Just email or call and I am happy to drop them by.