Author Archives: Kathleen

Maybe for Christmas

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I’ve got some strategies for avoiding the grocery store begging that plagues many 9.9.08 Isaac and Charlotte (1) mothers of young children.  First of all, my kids know that when I say no at the grocery store I never give in.  Although I’d like to claim that this is because I’ve mastered the element of consistency in parenting, I know that my sense of frugality is sometimes my driving force.   The other thing I do is use phrases like "maybe we can make a treat at home" or "we should ask Santa to get you that for Christmas."  So far these phrases have worked wonderfully and my kids forget about the desired item entirely by the time we get home!

I could tell Isaac was ready for lunch one day when he started eyeing and asking about the candy in the check-out isle.  When he asked me for a particular treat, I told him that perhaps we could make a treat when we got home.  He put the candy back and I felt proud of how easily I had avoided a tantrum.  He stared picking up candy bars, starbursts, and other impulse items one at a time and saying "maybe we can make something like this at home, " and luckily he put each one back without a fuss.  The lady behind me was stunned and commented that she’d never seen a kid so pleasantly accept his mom’s refusal to buy a treat.  One time I commented on how he seemed to want us to make our own check-out isle.  He liked this idea and regularly comments to me at the store about how our check-out isle should look.

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Snow Already?!

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Can you believe we just had our first snow of the year?P1030625  It seems way too early.  Isaac and Charlotte were thrilled and bugged me all morning to let them go out and play.  Once the baby fell asleep I took them out and let them run around and make snowballs while I attempted to take pictures.  I got very few pictures where you could see their faces since they spent most of the time looking down at the snow and didn’t want to be bothered to look up at my camera.  Charlotte’s favorite thing was to pick up a handful of snow, throw it on the sidewalk and then dance on it.  Isaac enjoyed making snowballs at first but then started picking up as much snow as he could and then offering to give it to his sister or his mom.

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The fun never ends. . .

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P1030601So here’s a few more comments from this morning to go with last night’s post:

"It’s snowing!  It’s snowing!  It’s Christmas!!" –Isaac said this as he excitedly danced around the house just after viewing snowflakes falling this morning.

"I want stinky underwear!!!"  Charlotte cried this over and over upon having her soiled underwear changed.  Given the choice of clean underwear or a diaper she again exclaimed "I want stinky underwear!"

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A fly on the wall in our house

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I’m sure it’s not often the wish of many to be a fly on the wall in our house (although  Zach and Isaac (1) there have been a few flies in the house entertaining cats, but my hand-held-battery-powered-tennis-racket-shaped-fly-zapper seems to have alleviated that problem).  Here are some of the things you might have heard if you were that unzapped fly:

"All our prayers are working!"   — Isaac, after praying to find things and then finding them.

"That’s a regular baby."  — Charlotte, in reference to Nicole (she needed to differentiate Nicole from her dolls).

"The mail man sent me something to send him some mail."  — Isaac, after opening some junk mail and finding a return envelope.  Later he decided we should put a chocolate bar in the envelope and send it to Ohio for his grandma Bunny.

"it IS a night time prayer!"  — Charlotte, after thanking Heavenly Father for the food and blessing it in her bedtime prayer.  Her mother told her that she said a dinner prayer, but she insisted it was a night time prayer and continued to bless the food for several more nights.

10.3.08 Charlotte (1)"So you don’t feel smelly?  If you feel smelly you won’t give anyone food?" — Isaac, after I told him I was going to go take a shower.

"It is funny to knock over Isaac’s building"  –Charlotte, after knocking over Isaac’s building.  Isaac cried and Charlotte laughed and ran into the living room where I told her that it wasn’t funny to knock over her brother’s buildings.  She repeated this phrase a few times with such insistence that it was hard not to laugh (which might have proved her point).

"That game is for Daddies when they don’t want to play with their kids?"  –Isaac asked this question to his father who was playing a game with "boomers" in it (refer to the toddler dictionary).

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Comments?

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Till now you’ve needed a login to comment on our blog entries which results in many sad comment-less entries.  Now the floodgates are open so feel free to leave us a note (I’d like to think someone is actually reading our blog).  Just know that I’ll be moderating the comments and my red teacher grading pen has been bored and lonely since I stopped teaching school.

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My next new car

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P1030569-1

"You like this kind of car so you would buy it?" 

"There’s a special checkout for the car, you can drive it up and buy it."

Isaac built this car the other day and then he was so pleased with it that he talked about it continuously as he followed me around the house.  The above quotations are the only ones out of his stream of speech about the car that I could remember.

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Site Problems

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For some reason I couldn’t view or post on Virtute for a few days so I should have multiple posts today :)  I’ll see how many I can post before the baby on my lap starts wiggling too much.

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Prayer

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This morning Isaac told me he couldn’t find his water bottle and asked if we could pray to have Heavenly Father help him.  So we said a little prayer and almost as soon as we said ‘Amen,’ he found the water bottle.  Later when he was putting on his sandals he said "Should we pray for my old sandals?  Then I could have two pairs of sandals!"9.29.08 Isaac and CharlotteI know the picture has nothing to do with the post, but I love pictures so I can’t post without one.

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Naps

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Charlotte gave up naps completely probably a month or two ago.  She used to take a 9.26.08 Charlotte (1)good nap in the afternoon, but I’d go to turn off some of the lights in her room two hours after I put her to bed and she’d still be awake looking at books.  So when she no longer seemed to be able to fall asleep during the day I figured it was for the best because she started falling to sleep at night much more quickly.  This picture is of one of the few occasions that she has decided she still needs a nap.  I left her coloring while I ran to the bread store (Zach was in our room) and when I came home she was right where I left her sound asleep.

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Chores Update

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9.23.08 Isaac, Charlotte, and Nicole (1)-1 I was initially disappointed by how quickly Isaac and Charlotte’s zest for chores dissipated, but things are improving now.  Understanding timing is important.  I’ve learned that they have no desire to do chores if they’re already doing something that they enjoy.  That seems like an obvious lesson, but I tried bribing them away from toys in order to do work and it didn’t work and just frustrated me.  If I really want to motivate my children, I must create a scarcity that can only be filled through chores.  I haven’t been willing to create much of a scarcity for play because they get into trouble if I don’t give them engaging play options.  There are two types of things that I am able to create a scarcity in and I have used those two things as my motivators.  One is treats/sweets and the other is one-on-one time with mom.  As you can see from the picture, they are required to complete four chores for a treat of their choosing.  The second part is trickier.  Each time t2008-09-28 002 hey fill a small treat strip, they get to add a picture of themselves to the outing progress cha rt.  After four pictures (16 chores) they get an outing with mom.  The other children go to Grandma’s house while the child who earned the outing spends time with mom.  Outings include things like a bicycle ride (which Isaac is currently working toward), swimming, a trip to the library, or a trip to the park.  This system has been rewarding in multiple ways.  It allows me to regulate treat intake better, the kids are enjoying doing chores, and I get to spend one on one time with each of them (Nicole gets her mom time at 2:00AM or 4:00AM ).

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Fingerpaint

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9.24.08 finger paint I attend a preschool group with some other stay-at-home moms in the ward and it was my turn to bring the craft.  So I looked online and found this cheap, easy recipe for finger paint.  I made it the night before and by the time I brought it it was clumpy and the food coloring was difficult to wash off little hands.  I wonder if I cooked it wrong (I got impatient and turned up the heat).  It really 9.24.08 finger paint (2)sounded like a good idea, but I was disappointed in the outcome.

 

 

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Isaac

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I wrote about the girls, so I suppose I should write9.21.08 Isaac (1) something about my boy.  He is such a clever and curious boy.  He sometimes drives us nutty with his questions and regularly expresses what maybe inner desires by saying "what if the naughty guys. . ."  We actually convinced him to replace the words "naughty guys" with "democrats" for a day.  I found it much more amusing to hear him worry that the democrats would do bad things.  He had concerns like "what if the democrats came in and ate my dinner and they wouldn’t let me eat it." or "what if the democrats wouldn’t let me ride my bicycle."  Part of me worries about offending people, but then the other part of m e says "I don’t care if I’m politically correct or sensitive or whatever" and the second part wins because mostly I don’t really care.

Does he look like a wealthy (and therefore evil) oil tycoon in this picture?  Maybe Obama could use it to further his class warfare argument!

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Charlotte

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Charlotte is my momma’s girl.  She insists on hugs first thing in the morning, at 9.14.08 Isaac and Charlotte-1 bedtime and periodically throughout the day.  Unfortunately, I’m not always available for hugging.  She crawls on my lap as I’m feeding Nicole, insists I put Nicole in the swing or just cries at my feet.  Sometimes she grabs my legs as I’m walking and holding Nicole and I feel bad when I have to free my legs and step over her as she slumps to the ground and cries.  Zach thinks that I reinforce her crying when I give her hugs when she cries and clings, and I agree somewhat, but how can I deny her hugs?  I have tried a few times insisting that she calm down and ask nicely for a hug, but there are times when I’m taking care of the baby and I really can’t hug her even if she ask nicely so I can’t immediately reinforce the behavior I want.  I try to hug her periodically when I’m not trying to calm or feed Nicole, but I feel awful when all she wants is a hug from her mother and I can’t give her one. 

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Nicole

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My little Nicole is unique.  The first comment I always get is about how her is that her 9.7.08 Nicole (6)-1 coloring is so much darker than my other two.  One day I was sitting in my rocking chair holding Nicole and Isaac said "Mom, Nicole is brown!"  I don’t really notice a difference most of the time because I’m so used to looking at her.  

She’s the only one of the three who I didn’t have to kick out with drugs (I was induced for Isaac and Charlotte, but Nicole came several weeks early), she’s a fountain of spit-up (my other two spit-up a few times a week–Nicole spits up a few times an hour), and I think she cries more than the others (she has these inconsolable crying fits).  On a typical day she took two half hour naps, ate every two hours, and could only tolerate not being held for five minute increments before she would start crying.  She’s gotten a little better about allowing me to put her down the last few days, but she’s traded that for keeping me up more at night.

9.7.08 Nicole (8)-1 I was prepared to wait it all out and hope that before long she’d keep food down, cry less and sleep more, but other family members convinced me to seek some medical advise.  I don’t know why I’m so reluctant sometimes, maybe I’m afraid to get my hopes up that things could actually be easier.  As it is I’m tired all the time and I don’t have as much one-on-one time with my other kids as I’d like, and I never have enough time to accomplish much beyond keeping the house mostly clean.  So I took her to my most trusted physician in Spanish Fork.  He gave her a thorough exam and listened to my description of concerns and  prescribed some Zantac for a possible acid reflux problem.  He says it may take two weeks to show any results, but if she gets worse  or it doesn’t help after that I should call him and set up another appointment.

Sorry this blog is so dull, hopefully I’ll write a celebration blog in a few weeks to exclaim my excitement at how much happier my littlest girl is.

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A Yard?!

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If you’ve been to our house in the last almost three years, you should know that we keep talking about having a yard with grass, but till now it’s been all talk.  The story of how it got here is long and dull, but here’s a little slideshow of progress.  The second part of the yard should have sod installed tomorrow and the back will take us longer yet–but look—PROGRESS!

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Exersaucer?

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So I got this toy when Isaac was a baby and honestly, neither he nor Charlotte liked it much and since it has such a big storage footprint, Zach says that if number three doesn’t like it we should just get rid of it.  So she may be a little young, but I put Nicole in it the other day and you can see her response below:

The question is. .. . should we keep it?

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Preschooler’s Dictionary

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Here are some definitions from my little ones:8.31.08 Isaac, Charlotte, and Nicole (5)

Hinges = elbows or knees   Context:  Just before dinner he told me that his tummy was full because elevators in his legs had carried salad up past his hinges to his tummy and filled him up.  When I told him we were having tacos, he said the elevators took the salad back down.

Mystery Symbol = question mark     Context:  While typing, Isaac asks “Mom, where’s my mystery symbol?”

The toilet’s esophagus = the part of the toilet directly below the bowl that leads down into the ground   Context:  “mom, is this the toilet’s esophagus?”

Shampoo for hands = soap  Context:  I sent Isaac in to wash his hands.  He came back  out and said “I have no shampoo for hands–that is soap.”

Crying when I’m swimming show = Olympic swimming  Context:  Charlotte has been 9.6.08 Isaac, Charlotte, and Nicole (1) enjoying the Olympics.  So far her favorite event is swimming which she called the “crying when I’m swimming show.”  As soon as they started playing the national anthem she told me that the men would start crying.

Die = kill  Context:  The light was peaking in through the blinds and making little spots of light on the ground.  Isaac started hitting the spots and saying “I’m going to die this light”

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Neverending Laundry

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I actually used to enjoy doing the laundry.  It was my excuse to sit down and watch a  show while I folded clothes.  That was before I had three children now it seems to have become the 9.1.08 Charlotte (3)bain of my existence.  Between the baby’s spit-up and drool and the messy eating and accidents from my other two, I end up doing laundry nearly everyday.  If that weren’t enough, I never get through folding a batch without at least three interruptions, some of which last for a half an hour or more.  If I save it till the kids are in bed and I’ve done my other nightly chores, I find myself too tired to finish it.  I feel like I’m always in some stage of doing laundry–this is one of those things that gets better with time right?  How old do the kids have to be before I insist they wash, dry and fold their own clothes?  I’m considering starting them all on their own laundry at age 5, while I’m at it, I could start charging rent at age 10!

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