Baby’s First Restriction

 

 

Somehow this doesn’t make the baby books. I can’t imagine why (insert sarcasm). Dylan, my fairly easy to parent boy, my people pleasing boy, the boy I always get complements about, got in trouble at school. Granted, the first month of school he got student of the month and I hadn’t gotten one negative comment from his teacher until….last Thursday.

Dylan’s teacher stopped me after school to tell me 3 things:

• One: Last week when they had a substitute almost the whole week his name had been written on the board for being bad several times.
• two: One afternoon (while there was a substitute) him and 3 of his classmates decided they were going leave the room to go to the office to get new markers because theirs were not working.
• three: she said she had just seen a decline in his behavior over the last couple weeks: talking, not listening, etc.

Honestly I was pretty surprised. I was disappointed. I was worried that it was starting already. I wasn’t sure how to react. I told Dylan to wait in his room when we got home so that I could call Kevin and talk to him. Kev decided to come home so that we could talk to Dylan together. We decided beforehand that we were going to take away TV for a week and check back in with his teacher and if things hadn’t improved then we would take it away for another week. We spent quite awhile talking to him and then dealt out his punishment. He cried, not mad tears, sad tears, it was hard to watch. I emailed his teacher to let her know what we were doing etc so that she could check in with us. This was his first punishment that wasn’t a time-out. Nothing more drastic had been necessary up to this point.

As much as I hate to admit it, this punishment was total punishment for me as well. No show in the morning so I could stay in bed a little longer, no movie when he was home during naptime so that I could rest, etc. You see, Dylan is not a very good independent player, he never has been. He needs you to give him ideas and tasks, and nothing ever lasts very long. However, as much as I was dreading it, it really wasn’t that bad. I’m not saying I’m ready to get rid of the TV, I think it is enjoyable in moderation, but it was nice too see him spend his time in different ways.

I am happy to say that he got good reports the whole week from his teacher so his restriction ended today. I am also happy to see that the time away from the TV changed him a little bit, it was no longer his automatic choice. I know this is one of the first (and probably one of the smallest) hard parenting decisions that we will have to make over the years, but any small inconvenience or discomfort is worth seeing your children grow into the people you want them to be.

 

Proverbs 3:11-13

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline,

   and do not resent his rebuke,

because the LORD disciplines those he loves,

   as a father the son he delights in

solo

Here is Ethan doing Rock-a-bye your bear by himself today. He didn’t do it as well as the other video, but there is light at least!

 

Rock-a-bye Your Bear

Ok this is one of those posts that is probably of little interest to anyone but us and the grandparents. But I want to preserve evidence of the cuteness, so here it is. The boys are both very into The Wiggles and have mastered several of their songs. Please excuse my singing and the darkness and enjoy a little number we call “Rock-a-bye Your Bear”.

Oh, and Ethan will do this over and over again, and watch the video of himself doing it over and over :-)

Nothing like a good Christmas Party

This past weekend I went to the Children’s Ministries Christmas party at the Humphrey residence. Oh my goodness, not only was the food and company fantastic, but I laughed so hard during the gift exchange that my face was hurting. It was a white elephant exchange and the requirements were that the gift be:

• under 5 dollars
• from a thrift store
• Christmas themed

You can imagine these requirements would bring about some pretty interesting items. I am particularly fond of the clock I took home that sings the 12 days of Christmas. Of course people were fighting over that lovely sweater that Joe ended up with (far right). And I’m sad that you can’t see the 3 wise men mobile that Leslie got to take home. All in all it was a fabulous night spent with fabulous people.

And yes, these are the people in charge of your children on Sunday morning, be very afraid ;-)

Kevin’s dream come true

When Kevin and I got married and celebrated our first Christmas together we had so much fun buying all the decorations and what not but I quickly learned that Kevin had some pretty specific requirements when it came to picking out the tree. Requirements is probably too strong of a word, but he did have certain ideals in mind. They are:

• Buy a tree from a Christmas tree lot (not home depot, etc)
• therefore, must be a REAL tree
• You have to pick it out at night
• the whole family has to be there (just the 2 of us at that point)
• It has to be as large as the house can hold

Well, in our 8 years of marriage, these ideals have never ALL been met in the same year. Most of the time we could only afford Home Depot, or we had to get a little tree to put on a table because there was a baby, or a fake tree, or we had to go during the day (gasp!) etc. Last year I bought a really small fake tree, at Target, during the day, by myself!! UGHHHH!!

SO, this year it just worked out that Kevin could have everything he ever wanted in a tree and tree shopping experience. The funny thing is that even though we have high ceilings, we have the tiniest living room ever, so it’s taking up the whole thing, but thats ok, it’s beautiful.

 

And it’s ten feet tall, BTW. Kev is standing on the wall in that picture because he had to take about 6 inches off the top so it wasn’t hitting the ceiling.

So long for awhile

Our Disneyland passes expire at the end of the month so we went one last time this week. We have had passes for 3 years now but we decided this year that it just wasn’t a good time for us to have them. This last year we only went 4 times because of Kevin’s work schedule and the difficulty of taking Ethan with his uneven temperment. So, for now we think we should wait at least a year, that way Ethan will be almost 3 and able to do a lot more things. We didn’t do very good with our camera on our last day but here are a few pictures: