Field Day

On Friday Hayden had Field Day at school. Dave dropped Hayden off and then came back to get me since I had to pack a picnic lunch for us. Plus it seems like with a baby you have to remember a thousand other things (even for just 2 hours), so it was great for me to take the extra time. When we got there (late, as usual) they were just starting to race. They raced a couple of times and then did egg balancing relays. Then we sat down for our very early lunch. Hayden had a pita roll-up with turkey and cheese, along with pretzels and a flavored water. Dave and I had subs and chips. We also had some strawberries. Livee had a few Cheerios and then tried to eat the grass. Silly girl. We moved on to the parking lot area where they set up painting, sidewalk chalk, and bubbles. After playing there for a few minutes, we went to the playground where the kids got to "paint" the church with brushes and buckets of water (GREAT IDEA!) and took turns spraying each other with spray bottles. Then they got to go to the beach volleyball court where they played in the sand. This was, by far, the biggest hit of the day. Hayden loved it and Livee loved it. I think we'll have a good time at the beach this summer. After the sand we had popsicles and went home. It doesn't seem like much, but it was 2 hours full of fun. We sure were glad to get into the air conditioning, though!!! Both of my kiddies were worn out!

His teacher is so fun. She was crackin' the kids up.

Ready for another race.

Look how talented my son is. Okay okay...it was me.

The best pic of the whole class I could get without walking in the sand.

Livee probably just ate some sand. She liked it anyway!

Backyard Pool Fun

Well, I got out the baby pool yesterday and both of the kiddos had a blast! Livee looked super precious in her bathing suit, and since it was the first time I had to snap a few pics!

She really was having fun!

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Hayden was diggin' his surfer dude vibe.




And everything goes into the mouth.

10 Months..As of Last Week!

Wowza! Livee is 10 months old! Let's see, let's see...so much to tell. Here are some things she's doing now:

-Crawling for 3 weeks

-Putting anything and everything into her mouth...you name it, she's probably eaten it or at least tried to.

-Playing peek-a-boo

-Pulling up on pretty well everything

-Loves, loves, loves to walk with your fingers...Did I mention she loves this? She cries when you stop. But yet, she won't walk in the walker. I'm stumped on that one.

-Eating some "real" foods (including black-eyed peas, banana, avacado, cheerios, saltine crackers, graham crackers, teething biscuits, breads, buttermilk biscuits, cantaloupe, toddler ravioli, macaroni and cheese) and lots of varieties of baby foods

-Babbling non-stop and squealing a lot too

-Loves to go for walks and swinging at the park

-Really enjoys staying in the nursery at church

-Still thinks her big brother is hilarious

-Gettting jealous when Daddy gives Mama sugar...She pushed him away today and then gave me a big ole kiss on the mouth!

-Has only one tooth still

-Rubs her ear when she gets tired

-Nursing 4 or 5 times a day and eating anywhere from 3 to 5 jars of baby food...also drinking 2 or 3 ounces of water or diluted juice - She will NOT drink formula. I can't say that I blame her for that one. It smells disgusting and tastes even worse.

-Taking a morning and an afternoon nap

-Sleeping from 7:30 pm until 6:30 am usually

-Playing with Hayden's toys as much as her own

-Pointing her finger and babbling at Hayden when he gets in trouble

-Wearing some 6-9 month clothing and some 9 month clothing

Those are just the highlights. She's growing and doing new things every day. She is such a blessing to our lives! Only two more months and she will be a year old. Unbelievable!

Mother's Day 2010

I was very lucky this year. I got to celebrate Mother's Day a little bit at a time for about 4 days! After the Mother's Day Tea at Hayden's school, we went out to eat lunch...thinking that we wouldn't have time on Sunday. Then, on Saturday morning we went to Home Depot and bought a new patio chair for me for our back patio. And on Sunday we went to church and then went out to eat at one of our local Mexican restaurants for lunch. I even had a margarita! On Monday we took a day trip to Birmingham to visit with Dave's family and had Publix's chicken salad, croissants, fruit salad, and cookie cake. Yummy!

I feel very blessed to have two healthy and happy children that I got to celebrate with this year. After the frustrating week with Hayden last week, it was all wiped away when I put him to bed on Sunday night. I told him good night, closed the door, and then he called me back in there. When I asked what it was, he just looked at me and smiled and said "Happy Mother's Day, Mama. I love you." Melted my heart and made me smile. Anything's worth it for that!

New Kid - Day 4

Apparently we won't see any overall behavior changes for at least 21 days. Say what? Gotta stick to those guns.

Today was not fun. We started out optimistic because today was the Mother's Day Tea at Hayden's preschool. I left Livee home with Dave so that I could go and spend time with Hayden by myself, which I never get to do and should make more of a point of doing. The Tea was really cute and Hayden had made lots of special gifts for me that I will cherish forever. But after it was over we were all standing around and one kid had brought a toy. So, of course, the rest of them wanted to play with it. Well, Hayden wanted to be a toy hog. I took it away from him a couple of times, and even asked the little boy who brought it to take it somewhere else. But then the boy's mother gave it back to Hayden and told him to share it with another little girl when he was done. I told her that he had already seen it and that we needed to go. Well, she didn't get the hint. So I had to WRANGLE it from my child's hand, ended up accidentally elbowing him in the eye, and drug him hastily out the door as he was screaming and pitching a fit. I totally ignored him. When we got in the van, he stopped because he no longer had a sympathetic audience. When we got home I told him that his behavior was unacceptable and then I started crying and told him he had ruined my special day at his school. Well, that got his attention. I really was hurt and embarassed by the way he acted. He sincerely apologized and we got over it. But then we went to lunch to celebrate an early Mother's Day and he started all over again disobeying us! I finally had to take him to the van and sit him in his seat. When he asked what he was doing I told him that he needed to sit on his bottom in his chair at the table or we would leave. After that conversation he was much better behaved. At home he has been fine this afternoon. We even had guests over and he didn't make too much of a spectacle.

A lot of these things are little mistakes that we made along the way that we are now having to correct. For example, the not sitting still in a restaurant is our fault. We started getting up with him from the table when we were eating out when he was little, and then it just became the norm. I know we were just trying to pacify him in many things that we did, but we probably shouldn't have. No child should think the world revolves around him. It's been a big change with Livee being here, and now he is battling for attention all of the time. I think it's good for him to realize that there are others in the family and he wouldn't have if he were an only child.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

New Kid - Day 3

Have you ever tried to completely do the opposite of something that had been a habit for years? It's pretty freakin' hard! I have really had to "think" about my responses to Hayden today, as opposed to just doing whatever I normally would do. We've had our ups and downs, but I think we are making progress. This morning I had to leave him here (Dave was home) to get my point across that he needs to get dressed when I ask him to. That was interesting. We also discovered that he knows how to unlock the deadbolt and can open the front door. Needless to say, he was ready to go when I got back home!

Hayden has watched virtually no TV today, which is a pretty big thing in our house. But I got to play games with him and we put together a puzzle. He played outside in the backyard for a while as well. He didn't watch TV or play the PSP today because he kept talking back to me and telling me no. When he had his bath tonight, he kept plugging the drain back in when I would unplug it so I put him to bed early with no TV (he usually watches for a little while in the evening).

Let's hope tomorrow some of these things start to click and he thinks before he speaks. I have stayed calm with him for the most part today. I did lose it when he almost smushed his fingers in the van door, though. He is definitely noticing that I am not resorting to spanking and he's testing the waters because of that. In the end, I think he's getting the short end of the stick because, quite frankly, he LOVES his TV time. A spanking is over and done with, but not getting to do something that you really TRULY want to do is bugging the stew out of him. It's great to be able to wait and punish him also because by the time he asks to do something (after he's NOT brushed his teeth when I asked or whatever) I have calmed down enough that I can rationally explain to him what he did wrong and why I am not allowing him to do whatever it is he wants to do. No more yelling and not making sense and droning on forever until he doesn't even know why he's in trouble. It's a welcome change. :)

New Kid - Day 2

I got my book in the mail today! It's not a very long read, so I've jumped right in. I'm learning alot about myself and my parenting technique in the process. I am ashamed to say that I have evolved into an authoritarian (a.k.a. bossy britches) parent! It seems like I am going to have to work very very hard to reverse my bad habits.




Today has been interesting with Hayden. This morning I asked him if he wanted oatmeal (to which he made a face) or an egg and toast (to which he said yes). I came downstairs and fixed our breakfasts and when I called him down to eat, he proclaimed that he didn't want to eat that. He wanted me to fix him baby oatmeal. Normally I would argue with him until I got myself so worked up that I would yell, but not this morning. I calmly put the baby oatmeal back in the pantry and told him he could eat what I fixed or go to school hungry. He went to school hungry. Then he had a bad day there. Oops. But honestly, one of the first things it says in this book is that you can't MAKE your kids do anything. If you are reading this, remember that forever! It is an important fact!!! So, you can't MAKE your kid eat. They either will or they won't. But you CAN make it less comfortable for them later if they don't. That is, don't give them a snack an hour after meal-time. If dinner is done, it's done. I'm just not comfortable with Hayden "grazing" all day. He can have a snack at 3 pm if he doesn't want to eat lunch. I think that that is pretty reasonable.





Anyway, he got home from school in a foul mood and proclaimed that he wasn't going to come in from the van. I asked him calmly to come in and eat lunch (to which he said "No I'm not" in a snarky attitude), then I walked away. I also shut the garage door and the back hatch to the van. He came in a few minutes later ready to eat. Well, that worked. I had him put what he wanted on his plate and he ate every bite!!! One more point for me. He asked if he could play the PSP and I said no. He said "Please please please. Why not?". I told him that I didn't like how he had talked to me or his daddy earlier. He said he was sorry (to which I said thank you that made me feel better) and asked again if he could play the PSP. Here is the tricky part...you have to say no again to hold him to the original consequence!!! So I did! Of course he threw a fit which we had to ignore. Then I told him he could go clean his room. And he said no, he would play on the computer. So, I left it at that. BUT when he asked later if he could watch TV, I told him no b/c he had not done what I asked. He went to his room and whined and cried and then he fell asleep. He woke up a much happier kid, except that he still was not allowed to watch TV until he cleaned his room. It didn't take long for him to do that when he realized I wasn't budging. Then we had some dinner and he watched a little TV until he got mad b/c I wouldn't come to see a commercial (he's asking me to come watch them all the time) and he came over and hit me. I told him not to hit and that I was turning off the TV until he apologized. Then he whined and cried for around 10 minutes until he FINALLY apologized and I turned the TV back on. Hopefully in the future I won't have to prompt him for the apology.


I think things are headed in the right direction, but I know it's going to be really bad before it gets better. I'm really learning about what kind of parent I want to be. Looking forward to what Day 3 has in store.

New Parenting Technique...

The last few weeks have been really hard with Hayden. He is a very sweet, funny, delightful child but he has a mind of his own. Why are they born that way? ;) I have been just about at my wit's end with him. Up until now, our parenting has consisted of pestering him to do what we asked him to do until we end up making ourselves so frustrated and angry that we are the ones that need time outs! I found a book called "Have a New Kid by Friday" and I ordered it from Amazon. It hasn't come in yet, but from the introduction online I gathered enough information for us to go ahead and make a change. We are going to stop yelling at our child. What a concept! It only makes us more tired. Now we are just going to ignore him until he does what we ask him to do. And...we will only ask him ONE time. So far today, it has worked. This morning he wouldn't put his clothes on and we tried out our strategy. I walked downstairs and Dave played with his phone. Hayden got them on and we made a big deal about it!!! Then at lunch today he didn't want to finish his hotdog, so I put away the PSP (that he said he was going to play) and turned off the TV. When he pitched a fit, Dave and I ignored him and started having a conversation. After about 3 minutes, he STOPPED whining and ate his food. YIPEE!!! Please pray for us in this. We are so ready for a change and hoping that by no longer giving him attention for his negative behavior that we have an even more delightful little boy!