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Category: Kids & Parenting

Twinkle, Twinkle

Zachary has always been a big fan of music and these days he is usually singing along. When we’re in the car, he’ll ask for “my music” and will often request a specific song on whatever cd I turn on. He can also tell the difference between Daddy’s music and Mommy’s music and will ask that we turn it off or turn it up depending on his mood.

He absolutely loves to sing and dance and can often be heard singing during play time or bath time. He has apparently learned a lot of new songs at school as his favorites these days include Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and B-I-N-G-O. He’ll usually sing anytime I ask him to, except of course when I tried to get the video camera out tonight. He would get the first line of a song out and then scream, “I did it!” I was determined to get a video clip of him singing, but he was pretty determined not to let me.

A couple of weeks ago, singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star became part of his bedtime routine. It fits in right between reading a couple of books and saying his prayers. He can’t seem to settle down until it has been sung. One night while he was singing, I decided to grab my cell phone and record him. He misses a few words in the middle, but you can make out most of it. Since I couldn’t manage to get it on video, you can at least listen to the audio clip.

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I spent my evening figuring out how to convert the audio file and how to use Podpress so I could include the short clip in my post. If all goes well, I would love to include more audio posts so feel free to leave any feedback.

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Building Traditions

Tree Time!

After trying for several days now, I finally found time tonight to get the Christmas tree up and decorated. I was really hoping that Zach would get excited about helping this year and I was not disappointed. He handed Hubby and I branches as we put the tree together (yes, fake tree). He watched excitedly as I wrapped the tree in lights and garland. Then he helped hang the decorations on the branches. The only problem was that he wanted to hang all of the decorations on the exact same branch. I had to do a little bit of rearranging when he was finished, but it was totally worth it to watch him enjoy this small part of our family’s Christmas tradition.

When the tree was finished we decided it was time for a little snack so we finished the night up with this:

Celebrating a Job Well Done


It was so good it may very well become a new holiday tradition.

I’m really excited to celebrate Christmas with Zach this year.  I can’t wait to read him the Christmas story and teach him the true meaning of Christmas.  He may not really understand it quite yet, but I still want to introduce it to him.  I’m anxious to teach him the songs that I have sung since I was a young child.  I can’t wait for him to experience the true spirit of Christmas, celebrating with family and friends.  But the best part is building new traditions that my own little family will carry on for years to come.

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I'm Glad He Won't Remember This Day

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My sister snapped this photo at my mom’s house on Thanksgiving while I was snuggling with the kids on the couch. Zach and Ryan were pretty consumed watching Toy Story at the time and Brayden was just interested in those things the older boys were shoving in their mouths. As for myself, I was just enjoying being surrounded by three of my favorite kids.

This is how I feel most natural, surrounded by kids. I love them all, but Zach and my nephews have such a special place in my heart. They bring so much joy to my life. That’s why when I get frustrated and lose my cool with any of them it breaks my heart and I wonder if I’m really cut out for this parenting thing. I know kids act up and I should be prepared for that, but sometimes my frustration overtakes me and I lash out.

The whole losing my cool thing has been happening a bit too often lately. Instead of consistent disciplining, I find myself yelling and having the urge to spank out of frustration. I know it has a lot to do with the lack of sleep and Zach’s seemingly endless tantrums these days, but I find it happening more and more often. The less Zach sleeps, the less I sleep and we both end up crankier and crankier.

This morning, during an almost hour long tantrum I lost control to the point that I scared myself. After a night of very little sleep, Zach was screaming and thrashing around and refusing to cooperate with anything. I was getting later and later for work and he was getting more and more obstinate as the minutes went by. I had to hold him down to get his clothes on him and after he kicked his shoes off for about the fifth time I was spent.

I felt myself growing more and more angry and knew I needed to take a step back. I finally managed to wrestle him into his car seat and strapped him in. The car was in the garage, so I left him there for a couple minutes while I stepped back inside the house and tried to calm myself down. It didn’t take long. I just needed a couple of deep breaths and a moment to put things into perspective.

When I came back to the car, Zach was still screaming (just as I expected) but I was in a different frame of mind. He finally settled down shortly before we got to his school. I wanted so badly to turn the car around, go home, and just hold him for the rest of the day. Instead, I had to take him inside to his class where he clung to me with a death grip. When his teacher finally pulled him away from me, I had to listen to his screams all the way to the door.

I left his school with tears in my eyes, knowing that all he really wanted was some time with me this morning and I was in too big of a rush to give it to him. After being away from him all weekend, I couldn’t give him a few extra minutes of my time when he needed it. The worst part of it all is feeling like I let him down.

By the time I picked Zach up from school tonight, he was perfectly fine and had most likely forgotten about the whole thing. I was the one in need of some extra snuggling by that time and he was happy to oblige.

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21 Weeks Down, 19 To Go

21 Weeks

Baby G is growing quite well these days, as evidenced by the hugeness of my belly. My sister even commented today on how much bigger I am looking.

As the baby grows, I feel her squirming around more and more. Moves that were only small flutters a couple of weeks ago now startle me as I’m not expecting such strong motion. She tends to move around more when I’m being active. She also appears to like country music. When we were at the Garth Brooks concert last week, she was the most active I’ve felt her so far. She was kicking and squirming so hard that I even felt the movement on my hand for a few seconds.

I’m glad to finally be past the halfway point in this pregnancy.  Things will be very busy between now and Christmas so the time will go by fast.  Then we’ll have just three more short months and my precious baby will be here.  It is almost hard to believe that it’s coming up so fast.

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Lunch with Toddlers

Multimedia messageToday I got the pleasure of going to school and eating lunch with Zach. They had a parents luncheon for Thanksgiving where all the parents got to come have lunch with their kids. It was chaotic to say the least. Sitting at a table with 8 two-year-olds was an experience that I’ve never really had before. In between every bite I could shove in my mouth were requests for more juice or mac and cheese, which were the two most popular things at our table.

The food was actually quite good but the dessert table was the most impressive. I had a hard time choosing between the many cakes, pies, and cookies spread out. I ended up with samples of peach cobbler, apple pie, some kind of brownie/cookie concoction, and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie.

Multimedia messageI was also impressed with the table decorations, although I have to say that candles, tablecloths, and toddlers don’t really mix well. The kids had the candles blown out within a few minutes and the tablecloths barely managed to stay on the table.

The whole thing really was fun though.  I loved seeing how excited Zach was when I showed up for lunch.  Only a couple of other parents showed up for his class so they were all calling me “mom” for a while.  The hard part came when I had to leave and go back to work.  Zach wasn’t at all happy that I was leaving and didn’t want to let go.  Eventually a teacher had to come peel him off of me so I could escape.

I’m really thankful that I have a boss that is so flexible and allowed me to take an extra hour at lunch so I could be with Zach.  I really had a great time and I know Zach enjoyed me being there.

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Late Night Ramblings

I’ve had a post in my mind all day that I want to write, but somehow I can’t find the words to write it quite yet. It certainly doesn’t help that I had to spend an hour fighting with my obstinate son just to get him to go to bed. Somehow in the process I lost all of the thoughts that were written out in my head. Hopefully that post will still be coming but I just don’t have it in me to write it tonight.

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Instead I’ll let you contemplate on just how in the world this boy with such an adorable little face can turn into a demon every night when bed time comes around.  It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get him to bed, depending on what kind of mood he is in.  We have a routine set in place, but no matter how hard I try to stick to the routine, he’ll always find a way to break it up.  I’ve even gone so far as to use Super Nanny methods of keeping him in bed but so far it hasn’t worked.  Perhaps I’m just not strict enough.

One of his biggest excuses for getting out of bed is that he’s scared and with the recent onslaught of night terrors and bad dreams, I can’t seem to let that go.  How do you really know if a 2-year-old is scared or if he’s just trying to convince you to let him stay up a little longer?  I want to believe him and comfort him, but I don’t want to let him totally play me either.  On top of that, I really need to get some sleep myself and the recent routine has really thrown my evenings off.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for.  I know there is no magic answer and I know that I’m just going to have to be firm and wait out this phase.  I just hate it when I get to the point where I feel like I’m losing control and I’ve gotten to that point more than once lately.   And now I’m rambling on when I should be getting myself to bed and getting some sleep.

Please just tell me that this will end, preferably before I have my hands full with an infant.

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