I don’t really know if my daughter has a strong personality, what I know is that she drives me insane with her authority and refusal to do what I say even if she know I’ll be mad at her. She’s so stubborn and she really wants things to happen the way she wants. When I contradict her she just throws things on the floor, wants to beat me, etc. Of course this is not her normal behavior, she usually is a very sweet girl, giving me a lot of kisses and hugs, but when I say NO she just goes mad and wants to mark her territory. This same situation happens from time to time in daycare.

My son had this type of behavior when he was younger but he was a lot easier to control, my daughter is difficult to deal with.

My main problem and my problem of every day is being a full time worker. Why? Because it leaves me very, very little time to be with her although this is not an excuse. Most of the times she has this behavior while I’m doing activities (cooking, cleaning, on the computer, etc. ) and I think she knows I’ll be busy to give her full attention, could it be? On the other hand I know full time workers with so well behaved kids.

What am I doing wrong? Can it be her testing my patience to see if I give up contradicting her?

Well, I believe this type of behavior will go away as she grows older.

You can see more Wordless Wednesday at WW HQ and 5 Minutes for Mom.

My daughter, who is 4 years old, is already an artist. Everybody says that including her pre-school teacher who is (on her own words) absolutely delighted with Catherine ability to draw, paint and develop activities for older ages.

Catherine is very detailed on the drawings she makes. She’s already able to draw family members, all of us, her and her brother or her and I. The drawings are full of details like earrings, glasses, pony tails, hair accessories, jewelery, etc.. Her teacher is amazed with such drawing dedication and details. I’m saving most of her art so that one day she can take a look at all her work. I hope she continues to maintain this ability and maybe one day she’s able to be present on a gallery like the Park West Art Gallery.

I’ve already taken a look at Park West Art Gallery online where a wide range of art is available. The site has one section with links to the Featured Artists, clicking on a certain link it will direct us to a Microsite of the artist where we can have a glimpse at some of his/her work.

This site has an amazing feature that is the Tour that takes us to the new Southfield Park West location. The video gives us a complete tour through the gallery as well as a bit of Park West Gallery history. It’s really worth watching and listening to this video.

If we want to receive updates about the artists, gallery news or simply join the mailing list we just have to leave our name and email address.

Who knows, if one day, my daughter’s name will be on this site.

I’m officially on vacation!! I still can’t believe it. I won’t be working tomorrow and the other 18 days after tomorrow. Uauuu!!!

Tomorrow my daughter is going to school as usual and my son is going to daycare. I’ll have a blood test done in the morning than come home to do some blogging. I want to take advantage of tomorrow morning to write a few posts and try to organize my posts schedule for a couple of days.

I know that my kids are going to request all my attention. I only have 25 days a year for vacation so this is something we long for for almost a year. I really want to spend time with them although I also feel the need to have my own time even if they are around. So, I’m preparing some children craft ideas, movies and other children activities that can keep them busy while I do some of my stuff.

Having the pool at home is lots of fun but also time consuming. When they are in the pool I have to be near to prevent accidents, I don’t want to be on the computer while they are in the pool, I want to keep my eyes on them.

I want to keep up my blogging but I don’t want them to feel that they are sharing my time with the computer. I’m going to try to keep the computer away from me as much as I can. Well…if they are watching TV I can be on the computer…

I thought about not blogging during the vacation but I like it and I don’t want to lose the rhythm of updating regularly. I don’t have scheduled posts, no extra posts to use so I just have to keep writing when I can.

My husband will be on vacation only next Monday so tomorrow afternoon, Thursday and Friday my kids will be all mine.

My daughter is afraid of all type of insects and animals, she just freaks out, screams and cries when she sees an unexpected bug. What happened today is hard to believe.

During break time in pre-school she saw a bee, a beautiful yellow and black bee, was she afraid? No. She tried to grab the bee with her hand and she got stung on one finger. I really can imagine the pain she felt because when I was younger I was stung by 3 or 4 bees. My poor baby…

The hand still hurts and it’s swollen, I just gave her some medication for the pain and to reduce the swollen, I believe tomorrow she’ll be ok.

Well, two days ago she hit a iron bar with her forehead and now she has a black spot.

Well, what can I say, growing up is having a lot of experiences, some good but also some bad, all together they will make my kids more alert and aware of what is going on around them.

I’ve been having some problems getting up my daughter in the morning on working days. Although I try to get up early to have time to wake her up, I always end up stressing and leaving home already late.

I bought a clock for her room some time ago and I was hoping to wake her up with the alarm clock, but the problem is that the clock has a loud Tic Tac and she can’t sleep well at night. I’m looking for other options now and the Teach Me Time! seems to be a good option.

This clock changes color and when it turns green it means the child can get up. This won’t work of course if the child is asleep, therefore we need to set up the alarm. The alarm works as a normal grown-up clock, we can even press snooze to have the alarm going off a few minutes later.

The Teach Me Time Clock is also very interactive. How does it teach children the time? The child presses the left toe button and the analogical clock will show the time than the child presses the right toe button and the Teach Me Clock will say the time and will display the time in the digital format.

This clock has other features like five levels of learning (we can start with easy level and increase as our child increases his/her knowledge), it can show analogical, digital or both type of clocks, etc..

I thinks this attractive clock will help me with three situations:

• Teach the time to my daughter
• Make her wake up on time
• Beautiful piece of decoration

My daughter is 4 and from time to time she “shots” me those questions I find difficult to explain to a 4 year old but I do my best to explain in a understandable way. Here’s one:

Catherine: Mom, how does the water goes from the sea into the clouds?

Me (thinking): Well, when it’s hot, a kind of steam of water comes out of the sea goes to the clouds, than the clouds have water.

Catherine (thinking): humm I got it, that happens while we sleep that’s why we don’t see it.

Me (relieved): yes that’s it.

Well, my answer was accepted and no more questions were asked.

My daughter was once again removed from the Ballet class because of her bad temper. It is the second time this happens, the first time was two months ago and today it happened again.

She loves Ballet classes but, sometimes, she doesn’t want to do what the teacher says and really refused to do it. When the teacher calls her attention and says that she has to do what the others are doing and not what she wants she gets into her bad mood and makes a tantrum. Once she refused to do what the teacher requested she was sent away from class because, and I understand, if she doesn’t want to do things right why is she in class.

I really don’t know how to handle this situation because she really loves Ballet. I had a conversation with her when we arrived home and I told her if she wants to attend Ballet classes she has to follow the teacher’s instructions. I don’t think this is going to solve the problem because at school the teacher has the same problem with her.

She’s 4 so I hope with time, she will get it but believe me she really has bad temper from time to time.

Suggestions will be appreciated.

This is Catherine favourite present: Barbie Make-Up case. Here you can find everything related to make-up: nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick, all in several attractive colours. Of course she ends up with a shower after she put the make up in herself but I already told her that dolls and nenucos also like make-up!

There was no big birthday party for Catherine this year. She turned 4 last Saturday but due to Easter holiday most family and friends were away for the weekend.

She’s too young to mind about that and what she wants is presents.

She had a birthday cake and we sang the birthday song together with her godfather (my youngest BIL) and his wife. The cake had the image of the Ballerina Princesses movie.

Her favorite present was something she has been asking for for a long time: make-up case. She also received a puzzle, a book and several pieces of clothes and other accessories.

At the end of the day we received the visit of my best friend E. and a couple of neighbors (she’s starting in the blogging world with: About Portugal).

Catherine was very happy even without a big party and that’s what matters.

Sorry for those that visited this blog expecting new posts but life has been difficult for me.
I know I mentioned this several times before: full time job (leave home at 8:30, arrive at 19.10), two kids, cooking, laundry, cleaning, a husband that requires my attention and all the other stuff I have to do and remember.

Four blogs, yes 4,my blogspot one was supposed to be inactive for a while but guess what: I’ve been receiving linkpost to write there besides PU2B regular work. Blogspot blog is the one receiving more comments (probably because there is no spam filter in blogger) that’s why I’m now moderating the comments there. I really have to decide what to do, I already removed it from some social networks but I guess I have to remove it from linkworth and PU2B and lose a few dollars.

This blog was supposed to be the blogspot substitute due to all the “own domain” and “own hosting” dilema, but the truth is people keep coming back to the blogspot one. I guess I just have to “forget it” and keep up with this blog and the other two I have and where I love to write.

Another headache, I live in Europe and as you know we have the Euro currency. If you get paid 50$ for paid posts you receive 50$, when I get paid 50$ I receive now 31 Euros, two years ago 50$ meant 50 euros (+/-). These last months things got really worse and everyday they are getting worse, so this is another daily worry for me, I work hard with paid posts but each day that goes by I receive less.

Due to all the life, family, work, blogging events, I haven’t been feeling ok for a while, I’m a little depressed, fed up with my full time job, wanted to live from internet income but that seems impossible. The result is anxiety and a 20 minutes Tachycardia that almost took me to hospital on Wednesday. This is not something new for me but a tachycardia so long only happened 8 years ago, usually they last 15 to 60 seconds. I’m better now but still worried about the future.

Blogging is something I like to do and the extra money I earn is really helpful. Here am I now at 02.17 writing this post and already have some tasks assigned to write. Everyday I look for other sources of income. Europeans also have a disadvantage - no samples for us to review, no contests to participate, well…

I really like the blogspot blog but I really have no interesting things to write there besides paid posts so I guess I just have to stop writing there and forget about making money there. With time I hope to get more work for the others blogs.

This weekend was a tough one, I’m not writing about it now because it has pictures and bad and good news, events that hurt my heart but tomorrow or Wednesday they will be written.

I’m sorry Catherine for not being able to write a post on your birthday day (Saturday), you know mom was not ok!!.

I have so much to write, today and tomorrow I’ll be at home, but with the kids I already know time will be short.

As I mentioned before my daughter loves to color online. This drawing was one in many she colored yesterday.

Usually she colors hearts of blue but today they are red. She insisted with me in the nose detail…it’s white instead of piggy color.Her teacher spoke to me this week and she’s impressed with the drawings Catherine does. She’s very perfectionist and all the details are included in her drawings. I have to take pictures of some to post here.

Regarding coloring online, she already manages the mouse very well and she can already handle the browser.

Here is another one from last week: