A Good Thing About a Bad Thing

Although the transition to a family of four has been rough on everyone, it seems to have hit Camdyn the hardest. While she has nothing but love for little Lilly, she has developed quite the love/hate relationship with her parents......her Momma in particular. Since she does not yet have the vocabulary necessary to say hurtful things, and the temper tantrums can be handled in stride, the "hate" part of this new arrangement is actually quite easy to take. It is the "love" aspect that fuel my emotional grief of late.

Each morning as Lilly and I are leaving for work, Camdyn becomes the green-eyed monster, filled with envy. The usual routine involves clinging to my leg alternating between chants of "no me mommy....me love you, no leave," to "No baby go, me go with Mommy" to "Me sad, no Mommy leave. No take baby!" Knowing that delaying the departure is simply delaying the inevitable, I tell her I love her and must simply shut the door.....leading me to spend the rest of my day filled with some combination of guilt, sadness and inadequacy.

Since quitting my job was not so much an option, I developed a much less drastic strategy. Upon returning home each day, Camdyn and I have officially begun the ritual of the Craft hour. While Lilly hangs with Dad, sleeps or stares at her newly discovered hands, Camdyn and I spend some quality one-on-one time in the world of crayons, paints, glue and glitter! After two weeks, I think it is safe to say this has become perhaps the favorite part of both of our days.......not to mention the source of enough wall and fridge art to last a lifetime! Here is a sampling of our latest totally free, toddler friendly creations.......





*I simply had the snow man pieces in an envelope and had her hang them as she wished......think I may have a little Picasso on my hands!*