Category: Kids & Parenting

The Best of Friends

Published by dee on October 27, 2009

I knew it would happen one day, I just assumed it was still a ways off…a long ways off. It happened without me even really noticing at first. I had been working all day cleaning out my closet and dresser, doing laundry, and just general house cleaning type of stuff. I finally decided I was done for the day and sat down in my comfy chair to relax for a bit. There I was minding my own business when I realized there were no little people in the room, just me and Hubby.

It was so QUIET.

It was quiet in a way that seemed so wrong, yet so right at the same time. I heard some giggles coming from the back of the house, but that didn’t ruin my moment of pure bliss. It was then that I realized my two kids were in the bedroom playing together. Evie, who is usually contained to the living room/playroom area by baby gates had escaped and gone back to watch TV with her brother.

They were playing and laughing and having the best time together. It’s not that they don’t play together, because they do all the time. The difference was that there was no screaming or crying or fussing. I didn’t have to jump up twenty times to see who was hurt or which one had stolen a toy from the other. They were just having fun together.

I sat in the living room with Hubby just enjoying the sounds of my kids being not only brother and sister, but friends. The fact that they were entertaining each other and not using me for a jungle gym or crying, “Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY!” was just icing on the cake.

It was one of those moments that reminds you just how worth it it all is. All the day-to-day stuff just pushes itself away and isn’t so important.

Later that night, as I was putting Evie to bed, Zach gave his sister a big hug and said, “Sissy, you’re my best friend!” And my heart melted into a gigantic puddle of goo.

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17 Months

Published by dee on August 18, 2009

Dear Evie,

Seventeen months fly by so fast. Nearly a year and a half is gone in the blink of an eye. I think of those first few days with you, how tiny you were, and can’t believe that in seventeen months you have grown so much.

Last weekend we had a small garage sale. I sold the baby swing that both you and your brother used. The exersaucer, the play mats, the bathtub chair – they’re all gone now. I’m still holding on to the high chair, crib, and pack ‘n’ play, just in case. I sorted through your teeny, tiny, baby clothes. I put price stickers on a few and packed the rest back into the plastic tote they came out of. I can’t part with them yet. I’m not ready. Someday I will be, but not just yet.

You have decided all on your own that you are a “big girl” now. You don’t want to sleep in your crib any more. You climb right up into brother’s bottom bunk when it’s time for bed. We made it yours this weekend, and you picked out your very own princess sheets and comforter to make it official.

You suddenly want to do everything yourself, from brushing your hair to putting on your clothes and shoes. You pretty much have the shoe thing down, but you’re still a little confused on the clothes. Shirts go over your head, not on your legs.

You talk all the time. You say so many words, I cannot even try to list them anymore. Yesterday, as I was buckling you into your car seat, you were reaching for a brush on the floor of the car. I handed it to you saying, “Are you happy now?” You looked up, gave me a huge grin, and said, “Happy!” That may have been our first true conversation.

You have a fierce love for your brother these days, always wanting to be near him. I worry a bit about how you will handle being separated from him in a few weeks as he heads off to preschool. I’ve found comfort in knowing that even when I’m not with you, the two of you are still together. That will quickly come to an end. As I listened to the two of you giggling together until nearly 11:00 last night, I thought again that maybe it is time for separate bedrooms. Then again, maybe not. You need all the time you can get to be together right now. I’m sure it won’t be long before you are fighting like cats and dogs and begging for separate rooms.

Baby girl, you are so intelligent and caring and just everything I ever dreamed you would be. I know we’ll have our struggles down the road, but I hope that someday you can look back at this and know that you have filled every bit of empty space in my heart.

Love always,
Mama

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Is It Time For An Allowance?

Published by dee on August 13, 2009

Zachary is becoming much more interested in money here lately. He has had a couple of opportunities to make his own purchases at the store and really enjoyed it. We talked through the process first, told him how much money he had to spend, helped him choose which toys that were less than that amount, and then let him pay for them himself at the cash register. Ever since then, he keeps asking when he can buy more toys. I explain to him that he’ll have to save more money up before he can buy more toys. The problem is, he probably won’t be getting much money until his birthday rolls around again.

Is it time to start giving him an allowance?

My first response to that question is yes. I do think it is time. He’s interested and ready to start learning about money management. But, how do I go about it? Do I just give him a set amount every week, no matter what? Do I make him do chores in exchange for his allowance? At first I thought chores were the way to go, but the more I think about it I’m not so sure.

A while back I read an article about family responsibility (I would link but can’t remember where I read it). The basic premise was that things like cleaning and taking care of the house should be the shared responsibility of all members of the family (to the best of each member’s ability) and should not be done for any kind of expected reward, but for the good of the family. The only reward would be the natural consequence of the action (the child can easily find the toy they want because it is put away where it belongs) rather than receiving an allowance or other treats for doing something that should be expected of them as a member of the family unit.

Along with this argument, comes the fact that the true purpose of an allowance is to teach the child money management, not teach them to do chores. When giving an allowance, you should also be teaching your child to budget, save, and spend wisely (none of which I’m very good at myself).

On the flip side of that is the argument that as an adult he will be expected to work for his money. Zach knows that Mommy and Daddy go to work in order to have money for food, clothes, toys, etc. He understands that work is required to earn money. So, should I just hand him money with no expectations? Doesn’t that negate the idea that you have to put forth effort in order to meet your financial needs? I don’t know.

I’m still leaning toward an allowance in exchange for chores because it is what he has been asking for, but I’m thinking some things should just be expected of him without earning money for doing them as well. Maybe a base amount with a “bonus” if he keeps up with his chores would work? I don’t know.

I’m pretty sure I’m over thinking this whole thing, but I’m really curious to hear how other families handle it. Do your kids get an allowance? How old were they when they started receiving it? Do they do chores in exchange for earning allowance or are they just given a certain amount each week?

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Evie – 16 1/2 Months

Published by dee on July 27, 2009

Dear Evie,

I’ve missed two months now of these “monthly” letters and I really have no excuse other than that I just can’t seem to find the words to describe you these days. You are beautiful and charming. You are so full of life and attitude. One minute you have me in tears laughing so hard and the next minute all you want to do is snuggle up on my lap like we did for hours at a time when you were an infant. You make my heart swell and hurt in such a good way.

You are growing up so dang fast. Some days it seems like you are one going on fifteen. You still let me pick your clothes out in the morning, but heaven help me if I try to put the wrong pair of shoes on you. You will kick and scream and fight until I give up and let you choose the ones you want. As long as something is covering your feet it doesn’t really matter much though. You just love your shoes and even though you can’t manage to put your own shoes on yet, I keep finding you walking around in your brother’s. I’ve also found you walking around trying to wear a t-shirt as pants because you are trying to dress yourself already. There were even a few days when I had to laugh because you started asking for a “bow” in your hair every night before bed and refused to lay down until you had one. It seems I may have a little miniature diva on my hands.

You talk all the time now. You can still only say one or two words at a time, but girl you have a lot of words for your age. Your favorite word? Shoes. (You may have to get a job when you’re 3 to keep up with your shoe habit.) I can’t possibly list all of the words you say, but the most common are: shoes, mommy, mama, daddy, zach, bubba, bopbop, cat, bye bye, more, night night, outside, belly (while you lift your shirt to show it off), hello, hi, ball, baby, bath, potty, yes, no, and cup. I know I’m forgetting some because you’re always spouting off new words. You try to repeat pretty much anything we say, even if you can’t get the sounds quite right.

You are getting more and more social all the time. You love your friends at day care and your cousins, but you love your big brother even more. You want to play with him all the time, which means I hear a lot of “No Sis!” coming from the playroom and living room when you start messing with his toys. Most of the time he ends up giving up the toys and playing with you instead. When he does pay attention to you the two of you giggle like crazy and it is the best sound in the world.

It’s been fun watching you develop your motor skills lately as well. You’ve been walking since just after your first birthday, but now you love to dance as well. In the last week or so, I’ve noticed you trying to jump. Every kid does it, but I think it is the cutest thing when you try to jump and your feet don’t leave the ground. You are so proud of yourself every time even though you aren’t going anywhere. Your fine motor skills are improving as well. You have started picking up crayons and coloring and you are doing much better feeding yourself with a fork and spoon.

Along with all of the growing, you’ve been cutting teeth like crazy. You cut all four of your 1st year molars and all four incisors within a few weeks of each other. In between cutting all of those teeth, you somehow got a bacterial infection in your skin, got a cold, and a horrible sinus infection that caused a week long fever. You were a pretty miserable girl for a couple weeks, but once we got through the antibiotics you were back to your normal goofy self.

Baby girl, you are just so much fun. You are so lively and funny and just perfect in every way (except for maybe your sudden obsession with princesses). I can spend hours just tickling you and giving you zerberts on your belly and you never get tired of it. You just ask for “more” and lift your shirt to show me your belly. You bring so much joy and love to our family. I can’t imagine a more perfect fit. I love you, my little monkey!

Love always,
Mama

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Sometimes I Forget How Small He Still Is

Published by dee on May 11, 2009

Mornings have been a struggle lately. We go back and forth with this, but lately it seems to be much harder than usual. Zach just doesn’t like to get up. Once he’s up, he doesn’t like to get dressed. Once he’s dressed, he doesn’t want to leave. When we finally make it to day care, he doesn’t want to get out of the car. I always get some resistance from him, but today was really hard.

This morning it took nearly 30 minutes just to get him out of bed. Evie was being clingy so I only had one hand to work with, and couldn’t do much but pester him to get up. Once he was finally up and we went through the whole getting dressed process he told me he didn’t want to go to day care. We had our usual talk about how he has to go to day care so Mommy and Daddy can work, etc. but he still wasn’t budging. Finally the real issue came out.

“K told me he doesn’t want to play with me any more,” he says with the saddest face I’ve ever seen. “He says I’m not a nice friend and he won’t play with me.”

My heart totally sank.

I heard a little of this going on the week before but dismissed it thinking it would all blow over but apparently it stuck with him. My mama bear instincts wanted to just sweep him up, give him a big hug, and tell him it would all be all right (and to tell K that he was a big meanie). But, my parenting instincts told me that this was a teaching moment and I needed to find just the right words to teach him how to deal with people that hurt his feelings.

Gah.

I did give him a big hug and raced through what I should say in my head. I explained to him that sometimes even your friends will say things that hurt your feelings. Sometimes they are just mad and don’t really mean it, but sometimes they do it because you have done something that hurt their feelings first. I suggested to him that if K does this again, maybe he could just go play with someone else for a while until K is ready to play with him again. We talked a little about how he needed to make sure he was being a nice friend as well so his friends would want to play with him. And of course, if they can’t solve it themselves then he can always ask a grown-up to help. I want him to learn how to deal with things like this on his own, because God knows this won’t be the last conflict that comes along. This is so minor compared to the things he’ll have to deal with in the future.

The hard part is that K is the closest one to Zach’s age at day care. The other kids are quite a bit younger, which is why Zach gravitates toward K most of the time. It is a small home day care, so there aren’t a lot of options. When they’re both happy they have a great time together. But, K plays more violently, obviously watches some more grown-up things on TV, and has the attitude to go with it. Even though he’s just a few months older than Zach, he definitely seems much older and Zach looks up to him in a way. Zach, however, is the kid that wants to play the tough guy but is really quite sensitive underneath. He was totally crushed that K didn’t want to play with him.

I’m guessing that this whole thing was weighing on him all weekend. He had kind of a rough weekend overall and I feel bad that I didn’t pick up on it and ask him what was going on. I just assumed he was being obstinate on purpose. We grow up in this society that tells us that boys are tough and don’t have feelings but seeing my 3-year-old boy so distraught over the snub of a friend brought me back to reality real quick. I’m just as guilty as anybody else of forgetting boys have feelings too (just ask my husband).

Zach is growing up so fast. He’ll be four years old next month. He wants to be so independent. Most days I look at him and I see this big boy that can do nearly anything he puts his mind to. Other days, like today, I look at him and see the tiny little baby I gave birth to and I want to hold in my arms and keep him there forever. That’s the only place I can truly protect him.

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Breaking My Own Rules Again

Published by dee on May 4, 2009

Way back before I had kids I went to college. I majored in Psychology and took classes in Child Psychology, Child Development, Family Management (as part of my minor), and the like. I LOVED these classes. In fact, had I tried to get my Master’s in one of these areas instead of Social Work I may have actually finished the degree. After taking all of these classes (not to mention all the bazillion parenting magazines I had read), I had a picture of the ideal parent fixed in my mind. I had all these ideas, thoughts, and plans for how I would parent my own child someday.

Then I had kids.

And all those ideas, thoughts, and plans when down the drain.

I have since remembered what many of my teachers (and other parents) also tried to teach me. Every kid is different. They all develop in their own time. They all have different personalities and different ways of understanding the world. They all have to be dealt with on an individual basis. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another one.

Also, there is no such thing as the ideal parent. That would have been helpful to know, say, 3 years and 10 months ago. I think my son could give even the best of parents a run for their money. I spent the longest time trying to figure out just where my “perfect” parenting skills had gone wrong before realizing that parenting just can’t change a child’s personality. You would think all of my classes could have taught me that, huh?

Zach is what some would call a “spirited” child. He’s amazingly bright and has an incredible imagination, but if you say the wrong word or move the wrong way he goes totally ballistic. The hardest part is that you never really know what it is going to be that sets him off. He’s also obsessed with TV.

I’ve tried different methods of dealing with his outbursts without much luck. We’ve tried positive reinforcement, removing him from the situation, yelling, spanking, behavior charts, letting him scream it out, etc. The one thing that always, without a doubt, will calm him is to turn on the TV (assuming you have chosen the correct show for that moment in time). Want him to pick up his toys? Reward him with TV. Want him to eat his dinner? Reward him with TV. Want to get him dressed in the morning? Reward him with TV. Want to see a tantrum? Turn off the TV before his show is done. It drives me crazy but it works.

I’d hate to hear what Supernanny would have to say about this.

Yes, I’ve read the reports about how bad TV is for kids. But, a mother who is insane from screaming and tantrums is most likely bad for the kids too. If TV keeps my sanity intact for a little longer, then by all means I’m going to let the kid watch TV.

That’s one of the reasons why I broke my own rule (no TV in bedrooms or playrooms) last week and finally decided to put a TV (with DVD player only) in the kids’ play room. Daddy (ok, and Mommy) likes the TV too and I’m not really interested in listening to them argue about who gets to watch the TV any more. It’s all about keeping the peace. Zach can now watch his DVD’s pretty much any time he wants to (with obvious exceptions of dinner, bed time, etc.) on his own TV.

So far he has watched exactly one movie on his TV the day we set it up.

He didn’t ask for it even once over the weekend.

Huh.

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