Is this my fault?

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I did, in both my pregnancies. HG is hell. I usually don't even mention the official name outside pregnancy and midwifery groups since most people don't know of it. I'm sorry you suffered it as well.

I am still building up my website, at a turtle's pace. But you can take a look at what's already there to get an idea. I use "stick figures," so that I can draw very fast whenever I talk to my children.

http://www.eikonabridge.com/

I talk to my children by drawing pictures. Especially when there are events (behavioral problems, for example.) Just two days ago, my son pushed my wife from behind. I am pretty sure he got that from school, when he played games with other boys. To him it was fun, but we were so concerned that he might do it to other children. So I grabbed the magnetic drawing board, drew a stick figure of my wife and another stick figure of my son pushing my wife from behind. Showed that to my son. Erased that frame. Drew the next frame of my wife falling down with a hurt face, drew my son with a surprised face, and drew a third stick figure of myself with an upset face. I told him something like "No no pushing." Wrote down "hurt" right next to Mami's stick figure, "surprised" next to my son's stick figure, and "mad" next to my own stick figure. Then I told my son: "Mami gets hurt, no no pushing." Then I asked my son: "Why no pushing?" and he would tell me: "Because Mami gets hurt." Then I repeated the entire exercise by drawing a little boy instead of my wife. And told my son that the little boy can get hurt and cry, and that Papa would get mad.

An example is mentioned in my book. Ivan threw tantrums at dinner time and did not want to get on the high chair. I'll make the story short here. I sensed that the tantrum had a different cause (you may call it sixth sense.) I asked my wife: "Did you lie to him recently?" My wife sighed: "Yes, I think I did." It turned out not to be a lie. It was a new school. Ivan woke up from nap in school and did not see my wife. My wife was still in school but in a different room. Ivan thought my wife played a trick on him, and cried very hard. So I told my wife: "you just accumulated a negative point in his ledger." That night at bedtime, I drew pictures for Ivan in the presence of my wife. Explained to him that Mami was still in school. I further explained to him that actually from now on, whenever he woke up, he can play with the teacher, then go to play in the playground, and then he'll have class (circle time) after playground, and that Mami will come to pick him up later (with stick figure of my wife driving a minivan to school.) I further made a card album (about 8 cards or so,) so my wife could carry the card album whenever she drops him at school. My wife would go through the frames of the album and explain to him, before she leaves school. The dinner time tantrum disappeared, and Ivan learned to stay in school without my wife, too. So, the dinner time tantrum had nothing to do with dinner time itself. By going to the root of the problem, I solved the communication problem. Furthermore, he understood that it was OK for him to be alone in school, because Mami would come to pick him up later. I did everything through pictures. Back then, Ivan was mostly non-verbal. (But he already could focus on pictures, instead of video clips.)

My experience is that by drawing pictures, you get much closer to these children's inner world.