Contrary to popular belief, Lisa and I can be quite highly strung some of the time. Both of us can have short fuses when we’re stressed, tired or backed into a corner.

For the last 3-4 years, I’ve been struggling to deal with tantrums and crying children. Generally, a child in a bad temper can put me in a bad temper. A child endlessly crying or shrieking so loud my eardrums vibrate can drive me insane. For a long time I actually started to grind my teeth whenever I was stressed by the kids.

I’ve been working on this lately. Probably the most important thing I’ve to realise is that when your child is upset or angry, you don’t have to be. Getting upset because your child is upset is a reactive trait.

I’ve been choosing not to react. There are two key reasons for this:

1. A tantrum is temporary. It might seem like a lifetime, but a no tantrum lasts forever. It will pass.
2. Someone else’s anger or frustration is not my frustration. I’m learning (slowly) to see my emotions as seperate from other people’s. Just because my child is upset doesn’t mean I have to be.

The are some pretty cool benefits to learning to seperate your feelings:

1. You’re instantly calmer because you discipline yourself NOT to get caught up in a swell of emotion.
2. You’re able to deal with the tantrum better because you can coolly establish what’s wrong and try to deal with it.
3. You don’t wear your teeth down to splintered stumps.
4. You feel better about yourself for dealing with situations in a more positive way and this encourages you to practice more.

Before we ever discussed this out loud, Lisa said she had noticed me recently actually calming down when one of the kids threw a screaming fit. I hadn’t thought about it in that way. I think subconsciously I was choosing to see the contrast between my mood and Daniel’s (on this occassion) and to simply note that I was calm and he was not.

I’m not saying that I’m by any means perfect. If I’m caught off-guard on a bad day, I might still crack up if someone snaps at me, but incidents of that are few and far between these days.

I’m not joking, our house is becoming more and more like a community creche.

From about 2:00pm until 7:00pm, we host a menagerie of kids aged between 2 and 5. For whatever reason, our house is the preferred meeting venue. It’s actually got to the stage where it’s wierd when I come home and ONLY our children are there. The place feels empty.

Lisa and I fluctuate in attitudes about it. Dealing with other people’s children can be fraught with boundary issues. How do you deal with them when they misbehave? Do you take direct action or do you tell the parents?

We’re probably the busiest people we know - no exaggeration. It sometimes get hard to deal with five, six, seven kids instead of just our own three. That’s why I call our house community creche.

Now, there’s a sneaky upside to running community creche - we get to watch our kids growing up around us 90% of the time. Sure, that involves feeding snacks and drinks to other kids a lot of the time, but our kids and their friends prefer to hang around our house. We get to hear all the funny things they say as they try to work out the world around them. We get to referree the fights and inwardly laugh at how seriously they sometimes take things. We can see the kids getting tired as their patience with each other wears thin.

Maintaining discipline takes a lot of energy. We struggled for the longest time with how to deal with other people’s kids in the house. Sometimes they would be boisterous, sometimes selfish, rude or aggressive.

After a while, we decided that they should all be treated equally. We’d treat the others as if they were our own. There’s no other way to do it if you think about it - you’ve got to be even-handed. When someone steps out of line they have to leave the room, take some time out and calm down. For our kids, if they refuse to do this, it means time in their room to think. For the adopted ones, if they refuse to settle down, they’re sent home. Not in a nasty way, but simply told “I think you need to calm down, go home for a while and come back when you feel better.”

It’s taken a while for things to reach this calm stage, but it has paid off. One of the kids (who shall remain nameless) has become so much more amiable over time and has developed a sense of humour which was initially absent.

Occassionally it’ll rub a bit whenever we’re feeling stressed and managing a household of 5-6 kids, but for the most part we’ve both learned to accept that community creche is the best way for us to watch our kids grow. It could be worse - they could prefer their friends’ houses to ours. I would really hate that!

Jake has become a Power Ranger addict! I don’t know how to treat it. Does anyone know of any good classes or groups out their for addicts and their families?

Every time I see him he has a power ranger figure in his hand. He sleeps with them, he eats with them, he takes them to school, they even get pride of place in our bathroom sink as he goes to the toilet. Suggest storytime to Jake and he wants to read his Power Ranger annual, suggest a game and it’s swords out and we’re all pretending to be rangers and zords.

He has been planning which colour Power Rangers he will get for his birthday since Christmas. We have the same discussion every day, though the colours may change… roll on August!

I just love the stage that our baby boy is at right now. Actually I should probably stop calling him a baby, he is more of a toddler at this point. But he is our youngest and last and I want to have a baby for just a bit longer!

Anyway back to the point, Daniel is 21 months old and chattering like a monkey! I love watching the joy on his face when I understand what he is saying, and more often than not what he wants to eat.

Many of Daniels first words have been food or drink related. Unsurprising, considering thats all he ever wants to do. He is now constantly asking for bananas, toast, biscuits, chocolate (I know, I’m a bad mother), grapes, milk or juice. When he asks for whatever it is he wants and I understand him he immediately yells “Hooray!!”, it’s just so cute.

I can see Daniels temper starting to lessen as he is able to communicate more. I am so looking forward to the day that he can say, “mummy, I am hungry and would love to have my dinner now.” But for now, “bye bye” and “banana” are more fine by me.

When Rachel first began primary one, we were told that as her school were using the enriched curriculum method of teaching they would not be formally learning to read and write until at least primary two. However we were assured that if our children expressed an interest in ay of these skills they would be encouraged.

The enriched curriculum seems to focus very much on learning through play and on phonics as an introduction to early reading. I was surprised when Rachels teacher said that she was ready to start taking home reading books for herself and even more surprised when she quickly moved up to the next level. However this method of learning seems to work better than I could have ever hoped.

Rachel enjoys reading and makes a game out of sounding out the words. The songs and ryhmes which she learned for each letter have helped her to associate the letters with their sounds and now reading is beginning to come very naturally to her.

I was dubious when I first heard about the enriched curriculum method of teaching, but when I compare Rachel’s progress with some others of her age, she is at the same if not a more advanced level, yet she hasn’t had to learn dozens of spellings every week and actually has a real enthusiasm for school and for literacy.

We got the long awaited letter today. The one saying that Jake has been offered a place in the local preschool nursery and thankfully will be attending in the morning session.

When Jake was first born I thought it would be difficult for him to attend preschool for two years. He was born in early August and so by the time he starts primary school he will be five years old. Now his fourth birthday is almost upon us and I am glad it is nursery and not primary school he will be attending in September.

Academically he could go to primary school and I think he would fare well, but emotionally I think he will benefit from the extra year at preschool and at home. Jake is still very dependant on us (his parents) and I think another year would help ready him for ‘big school’ and being away from home for 5 hours at a time.