So glad to hear you guys back again. You’re always such a pleasure to get to listen to. I just wanted to say to Elizabeth that I’ve experienced the same traits in my strong, sensitive, OCD-ish 3 year old daughter and that I really think that rather than it being an undeserved anxiety that she struggles through, that it almost brings her a sense of calm to have things that she feels in control of (however much that may unwind me sometimes). We live in Ohio and it is very cold right now, and the other day she undressed her outer-wear THREE times before I got with the program. She kept saying ‘no the coat goes on before the gloves. no the scarf goes on before the coat but you can’t zip the coat until after the scarf is on. no the boots go on after the gloves.’… before I finally stopped and said ‘okay babe, what goes on next!?!’ She wants to feed the cats, and put the cream and sugar in our coffee and crack the eggs for breakfast… yell at daddy for not cleaning up after himself… yell at mommy if I put something in a different place than it belongs and she wants to be participating in every chore. But it makes her happy. Maybe Teddy just feels in her realm to be controlling things in her own way.

Also to Vanessa, my daughter very much went through the frustration of communication with using her words. She would absolutely do the babble with clear words in between, and to be quite honest with you it was simpler to just give an ambiguous confirmation whenever we didn’t understand what she was saying rather than creating loads of frustration on her end (i.e. ‘oh yea… i hear ya!!’ or ‘could be.. ya never know…’). If her face then showed that I totally missed the mark and didn’t know what she was talking about, I would change the subject and be like ‘oh did you see those birds over there!?! look out the window’. It sounds insane, but it generally worked. As far as tantrums go, I’ve found it soooo incredibly helpful to get down to her level and say ‘calm down…’ and then say ‘come on lets take some breaths. breathe in….’ (and then take a deep breath in with her) ‘breathe out….’ (and take a deep breath out with her). and then ask her if she feels any better and then ask her to try and use her words now that she’s calmed down. It really does seem to work about 99% of the time.

Lastly I just wanted to address the final writer-inner regarding her concerns with her relationship with her husband and the frustration she had from the situation with her mother-in-law. I am assuming you are a first time mother (although i don’t recall hearing a definitive answer on that). I have one child. My fiance on the other hand, already has one other child. During pregnancy I had this whole idea laid out in my mind of how things would be. And my feeling on most of those things ended up changing postpartum (and generally on a complete whim that just whisked me away and I had little choice in the matter - it was just that it was what it was). One of those being that I did not want my mother or sister to be in labor and delivery until deep into the throws of labor. My sister showed up immediately and forced herself into the situation and I ended up being grateful that she did. I really needed her there and didn’t even know it. Another thing was that my fiance ended up taking a step-back (to an extent) on helping with the baby at home. He was obviously present, but internally he knew that I had not been through this before and did not mentally know these things like the back of my hand. And he did. He’d been through it. I was EXTREMELY frustrated with him at the time bc it felt like he wasn’t being a team player… but in hind-sight.. I needed that and although I am sure it was extremely hard for him to not just jump in and do everything… he knew i needed that and knew I needed the freedom to figure things out and create a special bond with my baby. I also thought that I would be fine to handle everything on my own once we got home and that I wouldn’t need someone to come in and help. What neither of us foresaw was that for the first week+ she was silently choking on her phlegm. You could not tell what was happening unless you were looking at her. I was up all night every night with her for two weeks just staring at her to make sure she was okay. During the days I was exhausted and the only opportunity that I had for sleep was when my mom or motherinlaw would come and stay with her during those hours. LITERALLY after day four, I would just cry bc I was so tired that I had no control over my body and couldn’t force myself to stay awake even if I wanted to and I needed SOMEONE to stare at my child and make sure she did not choke- because I could not be trusted to stay awake. Along with that every time I thought about the delivery I would start crying. It was the one and only traumatic thing I’d been through in my life. I was exhausted, I was broken & I was in fear for my child’s well being every second of the day. Husbands don’t know everything. They know that they don’t know everything. But what they do know is that they need to be there to support you even when you don’t know what you need or want. After your baby is here, you may SAY what you want, but it may be too hard for you to SEE what you need. And although our husbands are there to hear us and listen to us, they’re also there to protect us even if that is from ourselves. I’m sure that he felt very guilty for not being able to be there with you both and although he realizes that you and his mother clash, I’m sure he also knows that she’s a good MOTHER and could help mother you through getting the things that you may have needed (i.e. rest, relief & time to heal). I think that it is time to forgive your husband and maybe even thank him. His heart was in the right place and he was trying to look out for you and your child when he knew he couldn’t be present to do so.

Anyways, it was a pleasure as always to hear you guys back together again and I look forward to future episodes.