Space rangers don't go to time out, Mom.

Over all I would classify Nathan as a very well behaved three year old. A calm, passive three year old? No. He is active and has a terrible stubborn streak that drives me and his Father crazy. I keep telling myself, maybe he will be just as stubborn when it comes to peer pressure. I don't hold out much hope for that theory but sometimes it gets me through the day. My increasing girth has given him more opportunity than I like to skirt the edges of acceptable behavior and I worry that there will be quite a reckoning when things get back to "normal", at least as far as Mommy's reflexes go.

I do have some thoughts on the threes though:

1. It is called the "Horrible Threes" because of, in my opinion, the back and forth nature of preschooler logic. They will follow a rule with no question, listen to your requests and ask intelligent questions one minute only to have a complete melt down the next because, for example, you can't read that sign for them. The fact that you are driving down the highway at 70mph, are at least trying to watch the road and can't look at what they are pointing to has no bearing on their reality. They can not describe the color, associated pictures or buildings to give you any kind of clue about what they are talking about but you MUST tell them about it. It is kinda like living with a time bomb, a cute loveable time bomb that lulls you into a false sense of calm.

2. If you are a tired and cranky momma that cute things that they say when they are getting in trouble only amuse the rest of the audience.
For example,
Me: "If you don't stop that we will have to go to time out, Nathan."
Nathan: "Space rangers don't go to time out, mom." And having established the facts he continues to zoom around the room at church as all the folks with grandchildren give him the immense satisfaction of laughing as subtly as they can manage, which isn't very subtle at all, I might add.
To the woman who wrestled him into clothes, the car, and through the parking lot it just isn't nearly as cute. Daniel has a better sense of humor than I do and tells our space ranger that it is because they know better than to get in trouble.

3. They have learned the art of negotiation and compromise but have missed the vital part of this whole thing that means that sometimes the answer is still no. On the other hand at times it definitely works to your advantage since they also haven't got the best grasp on what constitutes an advantage.
Nathan:"I want a sandwich"
Me:"Sorry it's not lunch time yet"
Nathan, after some thought: "I can have two sandwiches?"
Me:"It's not lunch time yet, Nathan."
Nathan, wailing as he flops to the floor:"Two sandwiches!!!"
Or my favorite:
Me:"Pick up one block"
Nathan, whining:"I want to pick up two blocks!"
Me, after blinking and trying to find the catch here:"Okay, two blocks"
Nathan, very happy now:"Okay, two blocks!" and then he picked them up.

4. To sum it all up I would still have to say it is my favorite age so far because we have the most delightful conversations and he has such delightful insights about the world. From his pure prayers to his delight at being able to teach baby sister how to play with his cars when she "gets born" I love every minute of it and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Crazy Dreams Betray Your Worries

So last night between the tossing, turning and trips to the bathroom I had one of those dreams that lets you know that you have been worrying about somethings even if you didn't know it.
In my dream I had gone in to deliver and when the baby was born they said told me it was a boy, and that the little girl we had been seeing on the sonograms hadn't dropped yet and we would have to stay there and wait in the hospital until she was ready to be delivered. So I am nine months pregnant, in the hospital with an infant who they are telling me that I am not allowed to feed because it could induce labor of the second child. I go back and look at some early sonograms that the hospital has that I didn't get and find out that Dr. Weigman (the one who delivered Nathan in Arlington, no idea why his name showed up here) had known that there were twins but hadn't said anything because that early, the sonogram was from about four weeks, and because of the position on the babies, there was not a good chance that both would survive. At the hospital they are keeping me on bed rest, hardly letting me see my child, and new people keep coming by to congratulate me but I keep having to explain the whole situation over and over to my confused visitors. After about two days in the hospital I decide that this second baby needs to come and I should be able to feed my baby if I want to, and since feeding is likely to induce labor I start trying to figure out how to breastfeed my new little boy, and about that time I woke up.
Analyze that if you dare!

Crazy Times: The count down truly begins.

Welcome to week 32! There are less than 8 weeks 'til my due date and I am starting to feel the pressure. Mental lists of all the things I need to get done before my sweet girl makes her arrival run through my head, not the least of which is to pick a name.
I get that question more than any other, and with those close to me it has become a big joke. The suggestions range from Kimmy to Jezebel and everything in between. And some I like, some aren't my cup of tea but how do you tell someone who's serious, as some of them are, that you really hate that name and wouldn't do that to your child?
Names seem to be such a determining factor in a childs life so there is a lot of pressure not to screw it up. If I name my child Sapphira am I condemning her to a life of doubt due to the only biblical mention of this name being in the context of disobedience and punishment by God? Or if I name her Sophia or Emily, top names in 2011, will she feel lost in the crowd?
So you want unique, but not crazy, meaningful, but not too weighty, it can't clash with the last name, and then you have a middle name too, check that the initials aren't a negative combination... and ta-da... you have a name for your baby, right?
Maybe I should go back to picking out curtains or something less important to my child's whole future and revisit this later?

Boys Will Be Boys: Lord of the Rings meets Thomas the Train

Let me set the scene: There they are, chugging in a neat row across Nathan's floor, about 10-15 trains heading toward the middle of the room. Little did they know that it was bath time for teddy. Into the toy box teddy goes, and that is when the elephant comes out. "My elephant!" Nathan cries, and that is when the the trains get it. The train line is suddenly decimated by by what can only be called an "oliphaunt" by comparative size rampaging through the line scattering them across the Plains O' Nathan. Once the damage is done the scene is instantly forgotten and the stuffed elephant lies calmly on its side among the wreckage as Nathan moves on to other exploits.

At our house there is no peace if you are a toy. I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for them, a side effect of growing up in the Toy Story generation, setting them upright when they land at awkward angles or jumping to their rescue when they get stomped on by a raging three year old. But I just sit and watch as Lightning McQueen revs up and pushed Woody and RC the car off the coffee table into a pile of other toys and as a bear, a dog and a Mountie burst through the walls of Lincoln Log homes. I draw the line at crushing the Woody pez dispenser in the entertainment cabinet doors, and shoving lincoln logs into the vaccum but mostly out of a need to preserve the function of my home.

Sometimes it's enough to make you worry about what kind of a child you are raising but then I see Nathan sweetly tucking in Wembley and Woody with him when its time to sleep, and I see how he will search for the tiny skateboard as if it were the lost sheep, rejoicing when it is found. I know many a gentle man who started out with a toy pistol in one hand and a pretend whip in the other so maybe I should just accept that boys will be boys and hope that like the Velveteen Rabbit, these toys will someday receive their reward.

Dittos for Kiddos

So last night was my first experience with Dittos. It was amazing and crazy all at once! There were so many parents there, moms in particular, and maybe it was me projecting my own feeling onto everyone else but there was a sense of giddy revelry about due to the shopping without children. It was like black Friday for the frugal mom! People were dragging around laundry baskets and trash cans filled to over-flowing with items. The line to check out was about a 45min wait and that wasn't because the volunteers checking you out were slow, it was the sheer amount of people.
The next sale is in February which I think is perfect. I will be in my last two months of pregnancy and we will know just what we need to finish preparing for the new little one. I think I might try to sell some stuff this time around as well. There isn't much that we can sell other than toys and a few odds and ends because I refuse to sell clothes. I firmly believe that since all of Nathans clothes were such a gracious gift to us from so many people that I should pass that on to others for a similar price, that being, free.
So the only question I have is where will I get a rolling laundry basket?

Bulk Buying

I love buying things in bulk. I guess my hoarder instincts have to come out somewhere. It is never things I don't use all the time, for example my most common bulk purchases are the following:
Juice, Toilet Paper, Flour, Yeast, Paper Towels, Sugar...
The kind of things of which there is no doubt you will need and that are not a good thing to suddenly be out of. When I take the time to psychoanalyze my self I must admit it gives me a sense of security. A sort of, if there is no money tomorrow we will at least have toilet paper, kind of a feeling.
What I can't decide is where do you draw the internal line with that sort of thing so it does not become an actual problem, and am I putting too much of my confidence in material things? Though you have to wonder if just being aware and thinking about this things is in a sense a reassurance that you are not moving in an unhealthy direction. You could think your self in circles about this kind of thing. Who would have thought that I could make bulk buying so complicated.

Boundries

Nathan is really pushing boundaries these last few weeks and it is really pushing my buttons as well. Daniel has never been comfortable with spanking and even though I am a proponent of it I agreed to try a time out only method of discipline. Nathan responds to time out so I didn't feel that I was harming our child by agreeing to this change. I still insist on spanking for biting because that needs instant negative feedback. I think that he smelled the change in the air and decided it was time to test parental resolve on all issues. All the things we learned not to do when we were two, lets try them all again for good measure, just to see if the rules really are the same. And so it began.

We are about six weeks into the trial and I am about to lose it. I don't think that the time out isn't working I just feel that I need something in place to enforce time out. Poor Daniel has gotten a call every week saying are you sure this is what you want to do? I have stuck with it and I believe that Daniel and I are more on the same page and that things are very consistent in terms of our response to misbehavior and that is very much a good thing. But I am spending over an hour a day doing time out with my son and it is having a toll physically. I can't hold him in time out as well as I once could and when he fights being in time out it actually does hurt me quite a bit. Daniel has seen improvement and feels that things are getting better. I don't know if I disagree entirely or if I am just so close to it that realistic perspective is hard for me.

My solution: at first Daniel thought I was just trying to prove him wrong and that hurt my feeling a bit, really I am just trying to get concrete date to either encourage me or make known in a clear way what is happening at home. I started a time out log. I record the total time that the episode took, how many times he got out, how many times he was held in, and did he kick, hit, pinch or whatever at anytime during the episode. So far the results have not been promising, but it is only been 2 days so we will see where this goes.

Keep us in your prayers this will be a long road no matter what we decide. I still think in general that we have a very sweet, well behaved child, it is just that we also have a strong-willed almost three year old and that in its self includes a bit of trouble.