How to Really Scare Daddy

Mike's father has been having various medical problems and has been staying with us off and on in order to be close to his doctors. He has passed out a few times and this has scared us all.

The other day, Andrew wanted to watch a movie in the living room. Mike was working downstairs and Grandpa was asleep on the couch. I was gone with Rachael and Grandma was gone, too. So, Andrew went to Mike carrying some headphones and said, "Daddy, I want to watch a movie and I can't wake up Grandpa." Mike rushed upstairs to find his father on the couch looking pale with his head back. His mouth was partially open and he was very still. Mike's fear gripped him and he ran to his father shaking him and yelling, "Dad, Dad!" Grandpa opened his eyes and said, "What?! I was having a good nap!"

Apparently, Andrew was asking daddy for help plugging the headphones in to the DVD player so that he wouldn't wake up grandpa.

Sneaky Boy!

Lately, Andrew has decided that he is, "not silly, I'm funny" or he wants to "trick" us with whatever. Like, saying prayers - he wants us to start saying the prayer and at some time he'll jump in and start repeating us and, afterwards, say he "tricked us." So, I guess that means he is developing his sense of humor, though he hasn't figured out that an important element of "tricking" is surprise. He generally forewarns us to make sure we play the game correctly.

So, a few days ago, I was playing blocks with them and we were building towers "high to the ceiling." We have a set of 50 letter blocks that stack nicely. Rachael wanted to build then destroy. I divided the blocks up evenly, but Andrew felt he needed more blocks to get his tower higher. He swiped a few of Rachael's blocks without her noticing and his success gave him brilliant ideas. Every time she made a tower of 10 or so blocks she would knock it down. Sometimes, the blocks would roll behind her. Andrew was like a lion on the prowl. He would slowly and quietly inch behind Rachael waiting for her to knock a block behind her. Immediately he would pounce on the block and hide it behind his back. If she happened to look behind her, he would keep the block nonchalantly hidden as he innocently walked back to his tower to add another piece that he just "happened" to find.

I was so torn between laughing at Andrew's "sneaky" behavior and defending Rachael's blocks. I just sat and observed until Rachael was down to only 12 blocks and started noticing that they were disappearing. She finally caught Andrew in the act and started squawking her outrage. Andrew knew he was in the wrong. He tried to be pouty, but Rachael's scandalized protests won out and I told Andrew he had to stop sneaking her blocks. Once he realized that I had been watching him, he got the most classic look of "I've been caught" on his face. It then changed to a mix of "Aren't I clever?" and "Am I in trouble?" I had to choke back my laughter and tell him to just play with the blocks that he had and stop taking Rachael's.

Musical Beds

Yesterday's post discussed some of the difficulties in getting the kids to sleep. Getting them to stay asleep is a whole other problem. As Andrew is getting older, he's getting better. But, we've had many, many long nights with him. Now it's Rachael's turn to wake in the middle of the night and refuse to go back to sleep. They share a room and are both still sleeping in a crib. Andrew's railing is down so that he has easy access into and out, but Rachael has yet to earn her freedom. The normal middle-of-the-night solution for either is to bring their crib mattress into our room and let him/her sleep on the floor next to us.

So, last Sunday night Mike and I were not feeling well. Andrew went to sleep in his bed and Rachael fell asleep in the high chair. Mike moved her to her bed once we went to sleep. Around 3am, Andrew started sobbing. I asked Mike to go check on him. His solution was to bring Andrew into bed with us. Andrew fell back asleep and so did we. Around 5am, Rachael started screaming. Well, I was too tired to pull the mattress out, so I just brought her in to bed with us. One happy family snuggling in a queen size bed together - right!

Mike was sleeping in the middle of the bed, Andrew taking half my pillow and Rachael insisted on sleeping horizontally. There was no room for mommy in the bed. So, being exhausted, I tried to fall asleep on the couch, but the sun was too bright. The kids' room has blankets over the windows, so I went and climbed in to Andrew's crib, curled up and went to sleep. Predictably, my knees started cramping. So, I put Andrew's mattress on the floor and tried again. I finally gave up around 6:30am.

Mercifully, my sister came on Monday to play with the kids and I spent most of the day in bed - my own bed. How much of that exhaustion was due to illness and how much was due to my nighttime game of musical bed? - I'll never know.

Who knew a high chair could be so versatile?

Sleeping has never been something easy for my kids. There have been very short phases when it hasn't been a struggle, but those times are short-lived and not the rule. Most advice is to "show them you are in charge and let them just scream it out. They'll eventually give up and go to sleep." Well, after allowing them to scream for 2-3 hours, I normally decide that they are not going to give up. It's not that they aren't tired, normally it is when they are very tired and, therefore, very wound up and have been denied some little thing they want.

So, the month of January gave me a short reprieve from the constant sleep battle. Andrew has continued to be rather easy, but I made all the bottles disappear starting in Feb and Rachael still has not forgiven the betrayal. She enjoys the nightly routine of stories, songs, prayers, and brush teeth. But when it comes time to lay down, she starts screaming. Because Andrew and Rachael share a room, this makes it difficult for Andrew to fall asleep. This has presented quite the dilemma as I know that she won't just give up. So, where do I put her?

A few months before Christmas Rachael decided she was too old to sit in her high chair. She now eats her meals standing up on a normal chair. The high-chair then became an effective time-out chair. Well, when Rachael started throwing a fit at night, I decided to put her in time-out in the high chair. I work on the computer at night, so I put her in the living room facing the front door with the light off. The chair was reclined and I thought she would hate it - hoping she would decide that her bed was better than the high chair. Ha! how wrong I was!

Long story short, the high chair is now her preferred place for falling asleep. I move the high-chair for nap-time into her room and for bed-time into my room. Sometimes she wants to roll over and is willing to be moved to her bed. Often, she sits there and plays with her fingers until she's ready to sleep.

She seems satisfied in the knowledge that, yet again, she has foiled my attempts at coercion. I console myself by saying at least I have stood firm by insisting that it be quiet time and by not putting her down in my bed (I learned that lesson with Andrew).

Beat Me To The Punch

Andrew has preschool on Mon, Wed, and Fri mornings. When I pick him up, I try to always be enthusiastic as I ask him about what he learned and how much fun he had. The school has a “valet” service where you drive behind the school and the teachers bring your child out to your car. You then slowly drive around to the front to park and buckle up.

A few weeks ago, I had a lot on my mind as I waited in line to pick up Andrew. He got in the car and I started driving around to the front. He then piped up and said, “How was your day at school, Mommy?” It caught only half of my attention and my brilliant reply was, “what?” He asked again, “How was your day at school, today, mommy? What letter did you learn?” By now he had my attention and was smiling broadly. I told him he was silly and he proceeded my usual line of questioning all the way home while I got to play his role of describing what letter I learned, words that start with that letter, the songs I sang and what we made in Kitchen that started with that letter. The whole exchange was very funny and clever on his part.

He informed me whenever I was wrong; it’s a good thing I had his papers to peek at while I buckled him in otherwise I would have, “made lots of mistakes.”

Hey, I just did what you told me to do!

A few months ago Rachael taught us that we have to be very specific with the conditions we set for her, because she takes us at our word - literally.

We were eating dinner and Rachael's mouth was stuffed. Unlike her mother or brother, Rachael follows her father's eating philosphy of mixing all the different foods together and eating it combined. She was eating quite well and happily until we brought out a new dish, it was probably jello. The kids aren't allowed to have jello until they have eaten their dinner. So, Mike offered Rachael the jello and said, "ok, you can have some when your mouth is empty." Well, Rachael considered that for a moment then spit out all the food from her mouth into her hand. She offered the masticated mess to Mike with the announcement that she was, "all done. jello."

Well, what could Mike do? Her mouth was empty, as instructed. She got her jello and we got quite the lesson on being specific.

World's #1 Dad

for the past few days mike has been telling andrew that he was making a surprise for him. mike hadn't told me what it was, but yesterday the surprise was delivered. mike drew a detailed map of the inside of our house and turned it into a treasure map then cut it into pieces for andrew to construct the puzzle. i helped him tape the puzzle pieces together then andrew had to orient the map to the house and find the start location. he then followed the arrows throughout the house to find the "X marks the spot" - which was a winter hat with 3 pieces of candy in it. andrew loved his treasure hunt puzzle and, of course, eating his treasure. he had a lot of fun putting the puzzle together and following the arrows; he also did very well by himself with only a few pointers from mom. he wants to play the game again and we will probably make a digital copy of the "map" to make it faster to create next time.

mike watched from the sidelines and enjoyed seeing andrew understand and use the map. after andrew got his candy, mike said, "well, now that i've secured my position of world's #1 dad, i need to get back to work." andrew has a great daddy!

Rachael's Coniving - 1

a few weeks ago, rachael wanted more juice in the morning (no surprise there) and i told her, "no. not until you've eaten some food. do you want some cereal?" the typical power struggle ensued and, eventually, she accepted a bowl of corn chex to eat (dry, of course). i sat her at the table, promised her more juice after she ate the cereal, and went in to the fridge to find something that was smelling. shortly thereafter, she came and asked for more juice. i asked if she was done eating and she said, "yeah." i clarified my question and asked if she had eaten all her cereal. she got upset and walked back to the table. a few minutes later, i was still trying to find the stinky culprit in the fridge, i heard her walking around and saw her just in time to see her dump the cereal into the sink. she put the bowl in the sink and came to me to announce, with arms outstretched, "all done." cute as it was, i suppressed my laughter and went to the sink to retrieve the empty bowl and most of the remaining cereal (luckily, my sink was clean at the time). i put her back at the table and said she had to eat her cereal, all of it, if she wanted more juice. she pouted but went back to the task of eating; i went back to my task of looking for the reeking science experiment in the fridge. a few minutes later, i heard her walking around and looked around the fridge door in time to see her using the small dustpan and handbroom to clean up her spilled cereal off the floor. she swept it as best she could, dumped it in the garbage and brought me her empty bowl and said, "all done. more juice." i had to work hard not to laugh at her machinations and determination to get more juice. i returned to the table, scooped up a few remaining pieces of cereal from floor (luckily it was also relatively clean). this time i sat with her and she ate the retrieved cereal and then i gave her more juice.

the scriptures say children are innocent and without guile.... so, what happened with my kid? if that's not guile, what is? :)

Personality Traits

ok, comment on that last blog. Rachael isn't really swearing, she pronounces milk as "mit" and chocolate as "dam" so, the two combined just sound like she's swearing. mike wanted that clarified.

anyway, rachael and andrew each have very strong personalities, which lend themselves to many humorous stories. one thing that andrew likes to do is give explanations as to how the world works. for example, he likes to explain how "the clouds sit on the mountains and the mountains bake the water to make snow and then the snow falls out of the clouds after it is done baking." if you try to tell him that snow is actually frozen water, not baked, he vehemently tells you, "no, you're making a mistake. the mountains bake the snow in the clouds and that makes the snow fall. you're saying it wrong!"

rachael is much more of a coniver. she will say whatever is necessary to get what she wants. this lands her in time-out alot and i have found myself trying to explain truth and lies to a child who's not even 2. for example, i occasionally sleep in on sat mornings because the busy, exhausting week catches up to me. mike takes care of the kids' immediate needs, then goes downstairs to work, leaving the kids in front of sat morning cartoons. rachael hates this and is always banging on my door asking for more juice. when i ignore her, she reverts to her tactics of finding something more urgent. invariably, she tries a nice fake cry that i ignore then she starts complaining of a poopy diaper. once i'm up to change her diaper, she runs away because she doesn't want a diaper change, nor does she need one. she just wants me up to get her more juice.

i have stories like these almost daily and will try to post them to remember them and give the "mother's curse" to my children. hahaha

My Sweet Little Girl has a Potty Mouth

ok, not really, but it got your attention, didn't it? so, here's the story.
Andrew has always been really good with drinking milk and Rachael won't touch it - she drinks juice all the time. I've been trying to wean her of her juice addiction, but she's very stubborn (must get it from her dad :) ). Lately, Andrew has been on a big "flavored" milk kick; he wants chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla. I can get chocolate milk by the gallon and this is less expensive than the other flavors.

So, the other day, Rachael asked for more juice and I said no. The conversation was something like, "juice" "no" "juice" "no" "juice" "no" etc. I offered her some chocolate milk and, amazingly, she said "yeah." Later that night, she woke up and I couldn't get her calmed down. She was demanding juice and to sleep in bed with us. I said no to both, but she was in our room already at this point. The conversation was, "juice" "no" "juice" "no" "juice" "no" "dammit" "no-what?" "dammit" "huh, what did you say?"

It didn't take long to guess that she was asking for chocolate milk, but it sure got my attention at 2am wondering where she heard potty language - we're very careful about tv/movies. anyway, she now daily asks for "dammit" and i'm happy to give it to her.