Sunday, October 5, 2008

3 yr old = bipolar & has anyone refinished furniture?

I was commenting to Kalyn's post and asked "are all 3 yr olds bipolar?" and I thought I would answer myself with a resounding YES YES YES.

Ryan has less than a month to go before the big birthday, but I would say the last 3 months have been pretty difficult attitude wise. They have also been some of the most fun, as I listen to him explain things to me and show me things. I love listening to the conversations he has with himself and his toys. His hand gestures are hilarous! The way he reasons things out-or at least tries to- shows me that his little brain is working overtime. It was about 10 months ago that I made the call to the speech clinic and reported to the intake coordinator that my 22 month old son had no words. Zero. The language explosion of the last year has been amazing, but at the same time, has caused me to wonder about the difference between a true delay and just stubborness. Can you have a diagnosed delay of 1 yr but then be age appropriate after 5 months of therapy? I know there was a delay, at 2 he should have had many more words than he had, but what was the underlying cause? Lately, as his stubburon streak has come out I tend to think that was a big chunk of the problem. There never was a cognitive issue, as with most other delays. Usually when there is one problem there is another. As I watch this new 3 yr old attitude, the bi-polar, I know its normal because it seems everyone else is going through it too, but I still don't like it. It would not be abnormal in this house to have 5 time outs in one hour. It would not be abnormal for Ryan to get time outs for the same behavior in a row.

I cannot ignore (but sometimes have to force myself to remember) the loving party of the bi-polar 3 yr old. The unsolicited hugs and I love yous. When he asks me to play with him and actually shares his favorite train without me asking. The way his voice goes up at the end of him asking "mom, wanna go outside with me?" Watching his excitement when his daddy comes home and he goes through a very confusing story about what he did that day. Just hearing him speak is magnificent. I have to remember that we only have 6 more months of just him and I during the day. I just asked him if I could have a kiss and he said "um, yes you can."

Onto furniture. When we finally move I need to do something to our bedroom furniture. Ethan will not allow a new purchase, I won't even ask. That whole if its not broke mentality. My parents bought our set as a wedding gift, so it is now 9 yrs old. I picked it ou, and have no idea how I ended up with it. It is not my style, am I don't think it was ever close to a style I might have once had. Its rustic pine. I was having a phase where I wanted wrought iron on it, which it does have, but really, what was I thinking? I'll post a pic later, but that would require me making the bed and Ethan still has to hook up the camera cord to the computer.

I have thought of trying to re-finish it, going to a darker stain. The problem with that is that its knotty pine and I think it would be hard to cover the knotty parts because they are darker than the other parts. Another option would be to paint it white, but that would feel country to me I think, and nothing good comes of white in this house. My other option seems to be to actually paint it a dark brown, or possibly black. So, let me know your furniture changing experience.

2 comments:

Liz said...

first of all YOU shouldn't be painting anything. secondly, dark brown would be pretty - Paul's parents just repainted all their living room furniture that they got when they got married in 1979 and it looks super. just be sure that whoever is painting (because it won't be you) sands first and lacquers or clear-coats the paint afterward

Our Family of Four said...

SOOOOO funny b/c seriously, if you look-up bipolar symptoms by age an average 3 year old will check ALL the boxes!

As for the speech there are 2 kinds of learners, gatherers - who use lot's of different words and therefore have HUGE vocabularies, and generalizers - who use few words but with a lot more flexibility. So maybe Ryan was just a generalizer.

And yeah, if the furniture needs repainting make Ethan do it!