Natural Consequences

     You read all these books about parenting when your child is two because that is when the first time parent has a panic attack and realizes they have no idea what they are doing. I found that most of the books that I read had great advice, for about a seven year old. "If your child can't handle privacy take away their door, if your child tears up their or others toys they pay to replace them... " and so on. These were the "natural consequences" of their behavior in a controlled loving environment.

What is the "Naturals Consequence"
 for toe pinching?

      I don't know about you but my two year old had a door so that he would ever sleep and my two year old didn't quite get the concept of money. Oh he liked it, to eat or stick up his nose or in any other crevice he can find around the house but the whole value of a dollar thing just wasn't there yet. So we did a lot of time-out and taking away toys, and a whole, whole lot of prayer; sometimes for guidance, sometimes for forgiveness for the days I know I didn't do it right. What else can you do but try to tacitly discourage the "undesired" behavior because you really can't reason with your two year old? They are mini terrorists, in fact I had moments where I would say to myself, as mediation would fail to make an impact of my screaming child, "We don't negotiate with terrorists, or two year olds, We don't negotiate...".

That still didn't stop me from trying. I will confess that I had long, explanatory, semi-intellectual, but one sided, conversations with my two year old son about why we don't touch the toilet or grab mommy's glasses or scream for...anything... or whatever. Don't judge me, you have done it to, and when you spend all day in the house with a two year old you start to get desperate for conversation... any conversation.

"My personality is squelched!"

But back to the parenting books, they all propose natural consequences, letting the result of misbehavior, within reason, be the punishment, but it's not a "punishment", you can't use the word punishment because... I don't know it somehow means the wrong thing. That is the other problem with these books, they spend half their time teaching you vocabulary. "You don't want to be permissive (I'm with you...) but you don't want to be authoritarian (wait...) you must be authoritative (and I'm lost)." Okay, so this is what I finally got: How to be a parent- not over bearing, not without boundaries, not punitive, forgiving but firm, creative but not crazy, you can spank or you can't, or you shouldn't but sometimes you have to, and don't squelch their personality or creativity while your at it. Anything else? Oh yes, if you do it wrong you will ruin your child for life and they will spend millions of dollars on therapy to fix what you did to them... or become a psychopath. No pressure.
I guess I should start saving for my kids therapy bills now.

     Now that my sweet boy is four we can begin to use some of those more natural consequences as the logical result of misbehavior. When he played too rough with the box that we kept his trains in and broke it he used his money that he earned by doing chores to buy a new one. When he ground play-doh into the carpet he got to help me scrub it up. If he throws his toys they get taken away, if he hits the door of his room with something and it makes a mark he has to clean it off. If he dumps his cup of water in protest then he doesn't have water.

"This has got to violate child labor laws, Mom."

      All those books make more sense now, but there was a long journey to get here and there are still so many things that I just don't even know how to react to and I know that four is just the tip of the thirteen year old iceberg. I often try to remind myself that if I can instill a love for God in my kids that no matter what they do now I will have all the important things covered, but this is so hard to remember when he dumps an entire bottle of shampoo in the tub to make bubbles.

     Perhaps, if we are consistent and creative enough at four, once he is sixteen he will think twice before he does something creatively stupid because he will know that our parents failed to squelch our creative personalities and we can come up with something equally "creative" in response. The point is I want to lovingly set my kids up for reality because reality will not be as kind to them as they learn as I will. So you soften the blow while still allowing them to experience the results of their choices.

     Future rewards, or regrets, aside the best part of all this reading, researching, and hair-pulling-out, and long "where did I go wrong" talks with God, for today, is to see the pride this precious child of mine takes in the things he does, whether it is to set right something he did hastily, to show Dad how great his clean room looks, or for whatever reason. He really seems to be developing a sense of respectful ownership for the things around him and how he behaves with them. As much of a handful as my kids can be I could not be more proud of my sweet children, I am amazingly blessed. I see how my son works hard everyday to live up to the expectations that Daniel and I lay out for him and typically he does an amazing job of it. How could I ask for more.

"Someday I will tell my therapist about
how you wouldn't pick me up because
you were too busy with your blog"

And if all else fails, there is therapy.

Weaning Woes

     Finley was always a bit anti bottle. I don't know if it was because they took too long, delivered the milk the wrong way or something else. It just wasn't mom and she wanted mom. She was an easy going baby so we could leave her with people for a significant period of time even if she wouldn't take a bottle and so I never pushed it.

Big Stuff, right?

     I actually tried a bottle again because she grabbed one of brothers sippy cups and put it in her mouth sucking joyfully at it, she thought she was big stuff drinking from a cup like brother. So I tried the bottle and she took it with no trouble. I still didn't pump much but it was nice to know that she would take a bottle and occasionally I would put watered down juice in it for her when we would be out which she typically enjoyed.

Teeth, every nursing
mothers hope and fear in one.

     About two months ago I was counting down to the day when I could wean. Finley didn't bite, or I would have cut her off long ago, but she pulled and pinched constantly so that some times feeding time was more like a wrestling match. But I never felt exasperated or failed to realize how precious those moments were, at least when when she wasn't pulling her head back or grabbing hunks of my flesh in her fist. It just seemed to be in my best interest to move things along once Finley turned one. As we got closer to her first birthday she seems to realize that she was hurting me and started being much more gentle. Nursing became our very special cuddle time early in the morning and just before bedtime and I was considering nursing for a few more months past her birthday.

Drowsy Baby

     Three or so weeks ago I got a bit of a head cold. I didn't give it a second thought, just drank tea, sinus rinses, allergy pills, and lots of Kleenex. This went on for almost a week when one morning I woke up to a pain in my ears. Daniel got the kids up and took them to my amazing cousin-in-law's house while I lay in bed applying counter pressure to my ears to keep from screaming. I made a doctors appointment and after a while some advil kicked in and I was able to move slowly around my quiet house. I called the pediatrician because I knew there was a chance that either the medication wouldn't let me breastfeed or would dry up my milk. They told me what I already knew, that since Finley was days from turning one she could start drinking cows milk and eating a normal diet without having to supplement. In other words, weaning would be simple and not include formula.

Me, Mommy and the Bottle

     The doctor gave me an antibiotic that wouldn't allow me to breastfeed so we did a crash course in weaning that night. Finley got a bottle of slightly warmed milk and I took some strong painkillers due to the ear/shots in each hip/haven't fed the baby since 5am pain and went to sleep.
Finley adapted like a pro. She didn't pull at my shirt or look to feed when I held her in a prone position. She and her bottle would cuddle up with me and then she would go to bed with no fuss.

Infafeeder: The best of
both worlds

   
     I have not felt the joy and relief I thought that I would feel when I decided to wean Finley. Since she finishes the bottles so much faster our cuddle time is much shorter and she just seems so much more grown up now. I feel like overnight I have a toddler instead of an infant. And the longer I go with out nursing the less okay with it I am. It didn't help that it took a week and a half for my milk to dry up which meant that I thought in passing about trying to re-initiate nursing once the antibiotic was over. The first day that I noticed that I wasn't uncomfortable, that it really was over, I just began weeping. I know that some of this must be due to the crazy swings weaning caused in my hormones, but I can't dismiss all my feeling that way.

My Baby Girl and Me

I try to focus on the good things, for example, I have so much more energy now, which really surprised me. I didn't remember that happening with Nathan. Baby girl is eating more table food and seems to really love it. And the best part is that Daniel can do the 5 am bottle which gives him some time with Finley and me a bit more sleep, but is it worth it?
I miss that undeniable link between me and my child more than I ever thought I would. Sometimes when I think about it something in my heart still gives a tiny tug and I have to take a deep breath. But, you know what, her face still lights up just for me when I come get her in the morning, she still loves to sit in my lap and get kisses, she loves to cuddle up with me when she gets sleepy, and when she gets a bump there is no one else in the world who can make it right but momma. How blessed am I?

Readers 4 Life

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away,

Nor any Courser like a Page

Of prancing Poetry-

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll-

How frugal is the Chariot 

That bears the Human soul

-Emily Dickinson

  

Guarding his book from Finley

     First of all, here is a little background. I remember going to the cabin when I was about three or four years old and sitting in the living room, longing to go out and play but I was too young to go alone and my parents were busy reading. They actually said "I guess you better learn to read so you won't be bored." I quickly learned to read and to love reading. My mom was great about taking us to the library on a regular basis and she would read out loud to us for hours. Because she would read to us I was able to come in contact with books above my reading level and quickly became an adept and avid reader.

"Is that supposed to be a horse?"

     My mom taught, well, several different grades, but she spent several years while I was still living at home teaching third grade at a title one school (low socioeconomic status) and many of her kids came from homes where the parents couldn't be as involved with their kids for one reason or another. She felt strongly that her success with those kids, specifically in the area of test score improvement, (there is no accounting for kid magic which she has in abundance) was due to the huge amount of reading that she did with the kids in her classroom.

This should be one of those library "READ" posters.

     All these things bring me to the conclusion that reading is important. Duh, you all say. But hear me out, even if this seems obvious. The more adept you are at reading the further you can go in any area that might catch your interest. If you want to take up sailing, get a book. If you are curious about accounting, look it up, because we are all curious about accounting, right? If I can instill in my kids a love for reading, I feel, the only limits on them will be the ones they impose on themselves.

     So here are my fears...
     People always talk about how as you have more kids you tend to read to them less. You get busy, or rushed, or you are trying to help the older ones with homework and there just isn't time to read to the little ones the way you read to your first. Right now Nathan reads at least two books at bedtime every night. But reading with Finley is sporadic and she doesn't have the patience for books before bed. I know that as the kids get older things will get busier and that if we are blessed with more children bedtime will only get more hectic and our reading routine might fall by the way side.

Totally posed...

     I also struggle with the fact that I really don't enjoy reading out loud. As someone who has been reading silently since I was four, it feels very tedious to me, but I really do try to push myself to do it. I am often surprised, when I am done, how much I enjoyed it. Also, compare to Daniel, I am just rather boring. Given the choice of who to read to him Nathan will always choose Daddy. Daniel can do all the voices, he gets excited and really makes the story come to life. I try but all my funny voices sound the same and Nathan with gently ask me to "don't do the voices, mom".

Brings a whole new meaning to
 a truck load a books

I am blessed by the fact that Nathan already loves books. He will sit for hours, I am not exaggerating, and listen to someone read to him. He is such an active child normally (understatement of the year) and it is amazing to see him sit enthralled as someone reads aloud to him or as he flips through books, looking carefully at each page of the ones that we have read so many times he knows them by heart.

Story Time!

So where do you go to grow bibliophiles? The Library!
The library is a mixed bag for me as the mother of young children. The concept of inside voices, much less library voices, does not come naturally to my children, but I want Nathan and Finley to feel at home in the library so I try to make regular visits for things like story time. At least when we go for story time there are half a dozen other parents struggling with inside voices too and I don't feel like we are as conspicuous. There is a class for Finley where they sing more songs and read Goodnight Moon every time. And there is a older group right afterwards that is between their ages but they both seem to really enjoy it.

"Of course everyone perches on couches like
this when they read, mom."

 All this is to say I want our house to have a culture of reading the way mine did when I was growing up. It should be an expected part of everyday life. The gateway to worlds unknown! I dream of the day when I might look up over my book to see my whole family just sitting around reading together. I am not foolish enough to think that the beautiful moment will be more than a moment, I am betting on five seconds, before someone starts putting their feet on someone else and giggling or fussing ensues. Frigate* or not they are still kids.

*a frigate is a boat of sorts, my mom made me look it up.

My Son: The Artist

     Nathan has displayed an amazing ability in the area of drawing. Many of his best works are on the largest scale possible, our back patio, in chalk so we have to quickly snap pictures of them before they get drawn over or washed off.

Self Portrait on dry erase board- making a "weird" face

Airplane on chalkboard

     His drawings of people all have some similar traits like the curlicue hands and feet. (How cute is that by the way?) But the hair and certain facial features vary depending on the subject. The heads are big for the bodies but the arms and legs are wonderfully proportional to one another.

This was an early work featuring Grandpa.

     Daniel, as most of you know is quite the artist and though his siblings would deny it they are also very artistic. In other words this is all from the other side of the family so I find myself unable to fully express to Nathan how amazing I think these are. I say things like "Wow!" and "I love it!" but occasionally have to ask leading questions to ascertain exactly what I am looking at. Daniel taught me that you should say things like, "Tell me about your drawing." and other leading questions that are less likely to be interpreted as "I have no idea what this thing is" and are therefore more likely to encourage future attempts.

Guess who? Larry the Cucumber!

Often, I need little to no interpretation because you can tell exactly what he was going for which boggles my stick-figure drawing mind. When I taught physics my students often mistook my drawings of cats and people for cows or buildings, or sometimes just had no idea where the squiggles were going. I did a lot of labeling for the benefit of all involved.
I love thinking about how he might use this as he gets older, maybe I have the next Monet growing up in my home! And if he wants to go into astrophysics, that's okay with me too. I will admit that I am praying that he doesn't go into the NFL, I don't know if my heart could take it.

Bumble Bees- this is my favorite

The question that I keep asking myself is how to encourage him to keep it up. We all have stories about the things that we excelled at as children but just never kept up, either because we lost interest or because of some sort of bad experience we had. I don't want that to happen to my sweet boy.

Sea Monster from a How To Draw book

On the other hand, I don't want to be that parent who thinks that their child is utter genius and, ignoring the protest and other interests of the child, push them to hard.

Half a bell pepper makes a clover stamp. Thanks Pinterest!

I think my happy medium lies in bragging about him here, and on Facebook  giving him lots of encouraging words and making sure he has lots of opportunities to explore his budding talent. Even if it means sacrificing my kitchen table to bell pepper art.

Sweet Sickies or The Dreaded 90%

 When Nathan is sick it goes one of two ways:

     I either have the sweetest, cuddliest, most laid back boy who doesn't feel good, like last December when he ran a fever for the first time in two years and we couldn't find anything terribly wrong with him other than what seemed to be a nasty cold. All that day he lay around, or played gently with his cars. It's a very quiet, likes to cuddle with Mommy or, as in this picture, with his Frog and Wembley, Nathan. I hate to say it but I treasure these moments because I know what is around the corner once he starts to feel better.

December 2012
Feeling to icky to do more than watch Finley play
 and cuddle with his frog 

I love this kind of cuddle time but it always comes at a price.

     Or I have the "I'm 90% better" Nathan who is ready to run and doesn't understand
          a) why he doesn't feel quite as good as he normally does which makes him temperamental and
         b) why he and I are stuck in this house with nothing special to do when to his mind there is NOTHING WRONG!

     This Nathan shows up at the end of every illness often without an appearance of the sweet sick Nathan to console me. This Nathan is short tempered, hyperactive, on edge and finds fault with what would typically be the most fun of inside activities that I bring out to appease him. (Today he grumped about both painting and bubbles, PAINTING and BUBBLES!)

"I'm fine mom! So what if I was up till 2 am with a fever?
 I'm ready to go now!"

     I dread the 90% Nathan, and he always shows up when I am feeling the worst of the sick kids side effects. You know the drowsy "I'm not sick yet but a few nights of no sleep because the kids are sick will let something get at you" effect.

     So this is how today's 90% went...
     When your kids are sick your first step is to clean everything, right? Especially if you are dealing with a stomach bug. Did I get to do dishes because I went through every sippy cup we own in a Pedialyte frenzy?

This is a Pedialyte frenzy by the way.

     Nope. I spent an hour trying to get my son out of the PJ's he slept in and threw up in last night, he did not throw up on them, to be very clear, I have some small remnant of standards left.

     Did I fold the 5 ft tall pile of clean laundry that has resulted from washing every bit of my children's bedding, and the back up bedding, and a few other things that ventured too close to the bedding in question?

     Nope, I put my child in time out in his underwear because he shushed me every time I spoke to him during the hour I was trying to get him dressed.

     Did I wash the sink full of bath tub toys sitting in bleach water because, well... you don't want me to elaborate on why there are bath tub toys in bleach.

You don't want to know why the strainer is there either.

     The answer there is clearly...nope, because then I wouldn't have a picture of it, would I?

     So today's solution, after painting and bubbles didn't work was some intensive play therapy, meaning put Finley down for a nap and do nothing but play with whatever Nathan wants to, also there was The Daddy Break. Daddy came home, Mommy went to a quiet soup lunch out for an hour, and then came home to a tucked in for a nap Nathan.

Is that cheese in the bed?

     Maybe a nice long nap and an early bed time will help with some of the 90% sass that drives me so crazy. Or maybe some post nap laps around the back yard to work out the bounciness and wear him out for that early bed time. Once the children are in bed... then let the disinfecting begin!

      So now I just have to survive the "don't walk away, or put me down, or spend to much time not looking at me" Finley, which I find much more bearable, also she takes more naps.

You are going to hold my sippy cups when I'm 30, right mom?

Sisters Can Be Friends Too

I am always looking for ways to teach my children to play together but when one of them is literally half the size of the other, in height and weight, things can get dicey. There are moments when I have to leave them together and step out of the room, *gasp*, I know, but a girls gotta go potty once in a while. It is a 50/50 shot that things will go smoothly or that Finley will start wailing for an indeterminable reason. Nathan seems to be genuinely confused by these outbursts most of the time but I have seen that child leap for a train across the room and be totally unaware that he just kicked you full in the face so I am not often sympathetic to his bewilderment.

Not that he tries to be the perfect, model, brother all the time. I have seen the typical, pushing, trying to lift the baby, snatching toys and so on that results in wailing, and the not so typical, "Look mom, Finley is a horse!" meaning that he, my 35 lb child, is sitting on his 11 month old sister who is looking at me with a strained but patient look. On the other hand, to be totally fair to Nathan, I have seen him crouch patiently for long seconds (he is 4, seconds are an eternity) while I disentangle tiny baby fingers from hair that I would have sworn was too short for this.

"Go ahead mom, take a potty break, we got this."

When asked about his favorite playtime with Finley, Nathan says it's playing cars, and it often works well until we hit some denominational differences.

How Nathan plays with cars. Lining up for a race!

We have taught Nathan to tell other kids when they are messing up "his project", meaning whatever he is working on at the time. Finley is not even a year old and the phrase doesn't hold much meaning for her.

How Finley plays with cars. Nom nom!

I am trying to set up good habits that will be the "norm" in our house in terms of interaction and solving disputes but they aren't applicable yet because Finley is not capable of understanding those boundaries yet. So far Nathan has been very patient with Finley's limited understanding, and Daniel and I try hard to praise him for the moments when we see him doing just what we have asked even though it doesn't work in these situations. I keep holding my breath for the day we get a break down from Nathan because Finley destroyed something he had worked hours on, but, so far, his patience with her in this area ministers to me everyday showing me the true loving tolerance we should have for those who don't understand as we do.

Totally not allowed but I love these moments!

The most precious but volatile interaction between them happens in the car. In the back seat the other morning I asked Nathan to open Finley's toy phone for her. I hear "Can I have that Finley?" followed by a noise of protest from Finley which is a little strange because 'hand things to Nathan' is her favorite car game. Nathan responds calmly by saying, "Just a minuet Finley and I'll give it back." Once he opened the play phone and hands it back to her he sweetly says "See? I told you it would just be a second." That was a short car trip so nothing followed to mar that sweet moment but things don't always maintain that sweet overtone.
I look in the back seat to see Nathan reaching into Finley's seat which is against our rules in the car. I scold Nathan who tells me that he was placing his hand over there because Finley wanted to hold it. I take another quick glance into the back seat to see her tiny hand gently laid in his larger but still little hand and I melted into a big pile of mommy mush.


I think it lasted 5 more seconds before he grabbed her hand or she pinched his and there was yelling or shrieking of some type. I often find myself using the steering wheel as a stress ball in an effort to stay calm as Finley screams and Nathan yells back "Finley you're hurting my ears." at the top of his lungs. Why yelling this at her is supposed to help I don't know but at least it's moderately polite, if loud.

Say "Cheese" Finley!

Finley loves to be where brother is and what he is doing is always the best. In the mornings he loves to run into her room yelling "Good morning Finley!" and, if she was awake already, this always just makes her laugh and bang her hands on the side of the crib in absolute joy.

That is a foot pushing her up the slide.

But if she was asleep when he bursts in there is no consoling her as she weeps in bleary eyed bewilderment at the bouncing blur that just sprang into her room. And often Nathan's misguided attempts to "help" or "kiss" Finley end up really hurting her and he seems to feel little to no remorse at her tears. These moments tug at my heart and I find myself lecturing Nathan on how lucky he is to have Finley, how he need to always protect her, and how much she looks up to him... and so on, and on and on.

She thinks she is big stuff following brother up the slide.

I really just want Nathan to know that sisters are forever and God gave him this particular one for a purpose and those are both great reasons to treasure her. I just pray that one day it will sink in.

The Silent First Step

Finley has been teasing us with almost first steps all week. She would lift the foot, move it forward, seem to have placed it soundly and then roll forward off balance. I have many long minuets of video that lead to nothing exciting. She smiles and wobbles around holding on to this or that, falling, or typically, sinking to her knees and crawling quickly out of sight.

Babies have an awkwardness gauge that they use to put parents in the oddest situation they can find. It is a built in phenomenon, and, you can ask my mother, mine was off the charts. I am getting payed back in a very subtle way. I am not overly easy to embarrass, and my mother is no longer easy to embarrass, thanks in large part to dealing with a child me, so they, my kids and my mother, have had to carefully devise their revenge. I am on to them...

For example...
Sunday we were interviewing a preaching candidate, meaning that he preached for us and then we has a Q&A session at the end of service to get to know him a bit better. For the Q&A I gave up on sitting in the pew and sat down with Finley in the aisle so that she could crawl a bit, get her wiggles out (less screaming was the goal). See, I'm not a shy person, this was totally in my comfort zone. Finley crawls some, and then comes over to me and pulls up on the bench to cruise. She then proceeds to take her FIRST step from the bench toward me. I am ecstatic! She TOOK HER FIRST STEP! And, true confession of an extreme people pleasing extrovert, where everyone else can share my joy, right? Except for the small issue of being in church at a time. Any other time I would be jumping up, tossing my child in the air and doing a happy dance but that would frowned upon, and not just by my husband.
So I have to sit there and scream whisper "YEAH! Did you see that?" to everyone whose eye I can appropriately catch which from the floor in the aisle is not many.
See? A special kind of payback engineered for my kind of crazy. I's already working on secret plan of my own to share with my grandchildren. You can never start too early, right?