MamaBlogga

Every time I get Hayden a banana, Rebecca claps her hands. “Meeee? Meeee?” she asks in her nasal little voice, jabbing a finger in her chest.

Rebecca doesn’t like bananas. (I started keeping a list of the foods she does like; there are about a dozen.) And yet every time I start peeling one, she wants it.

“You don’t like bananas,” I tell her.

“Meeee? Meeee?”

“You won’t like it.”

She grins and signs please. (She’s even recently begun trying to say it, usually “pee” or “tee.”)

I know she doesn’t like bananas. Usually, it’s only been a day or two since the last time we went through this routine, so it’s not like she suddenly developed a taste for them. But still, I worry—what if maybe she would like bananas? What if my saying “You don’t like these” is just reinforcing her bias, and she would really like them if I just let her give them a chance?

So just in case, I usually cut off the very tip or just offer it to her. She’ll put her lips on it—no teeth or tongue anywhere near the questionable fruit—and then vehemently shake her head. “‘Ohhh, ‘ohhhh.” (How she says “no.”)

And tomorrow, she’ll probably want it again. I’ll probably give it to her again. Just in case.

Of course, Rebecca may be a little too young to learn that if you keep doing what you’re doing, you keep getting what you’re getting. Then again, maybe I am, too. Sometimes it seems like although I don’t like the way some things are in my life, I don’t want to make the effort to change them. I have just enough energy to whine about them .

What crazy things do your kids ask for? What do you (or your kids) keep trying even though you know you don’t like it?

Photo by eko

Last week, I went to a great talk on parenting, with a lot of great advice on discipline and behavior. But then I had to come back to my home and implement it. And boy, am I not perfect. Here it is, just under a week later, and we’re back to the screamfest that so often seems to be our life.

I feel like we’re doing something wrong—beyond the screaming.

But for some things (getting your kids to clean up and stop tantruming and stop tantruming about cleaning up), it feels like there just is no right way.

This just makes me happy.

When do you feel like “ur doin it wrong”?

Picture from LOLcat.com

About a year ago, I made a valiant attempt to amputate Hayden’s ear. (Apparently I haven’t discussed this on the blog before.) It started innocently enough: I was on the last snip of a pretty dang good haircut—”but man, why won’t these scissors close? Hayden, stop screaming, hold still, I’m almost—HOLY CRAP that’s your ear!!”

Yeah. Although the damage wasn’t nearly as severe as I’d feared (a bandaid was enough to patch him up physically), I figured his hysterical fear of haircuts was justified. Since then, I’ve made him endure a grand total of two haircuts (one by me and Ryan [and Aunt Brooke?] while Hayden screamed and we took turns restraining/hugging him—anybody have that footage?—and the other at a kid haircutting place which I didn’t witness but heard wasn’t too much better).

Last night, Ryan finally succeeded in convincing Hayden that not only did he need a haircut, but he could get one tonight.

By some miracle, he also convinced Hayden that the clippers tickle. Hayden giggled the whole time, and never ended up taking our offer of chocolate chips.

And now . . . I have regrets. But Hayden doesn’t!

I guess I liked him shaggy.

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And not to leave Rebecca out: we pulled out the doll bed her late great-grandfather made. I figured since she walks around with baby dolls or Pinky, cradling and shushing and lullabying them, she might like it.

This wasn’t what I meant by that:

(And yeah, that’s the entertainment center. She takes after her brother, apparently.)

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How have you helped your kids overcome their fears?

I can’t decide if today falls into the category of “good day” or “bad day” (so far). The biggest tantrum today was thrown by . . . me! (“I AM GIVING YOU EVERYTHING I CAN!!!”) I’m leaning toward good day (so far) since we’re all over it .

But hey, at least it’s better than the days I lock myself in my room to cry because I’m a failure as a mom. (Because I just screamed at a then-three-year-old that he should start picking out new parents because obviously we’re not any help to him. Yes, I know. The screaming is a problem.)

What do you think? What constitutes a “good day” for you? What’s your favorite “mommy tantrum”?

Photo by Neal

It’s Hayden’s birthday! For someone who has talked about his birthday for six months, he’s not that excited. I told him he was four this morning and he said, “Wight now?”

When Rebecca got up, he told me to “Tell her what I have now.”

I correctly guessed he wanted me to tell her he was four. Hayden came to stand over her, and Rebecca grunted at him to go away, using her sign for “all done/all gone/no more.”

“See wants my fee years old back,” Hayden explained.

Birthday boy needs a haircut

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And to catch up with the kids:

Just a few of the inventions Hayden claims are in “his car” (the red Honda we haven’t driven in years, but still have):

• wings, so it can fly to Nana
• guns (that go “pew! pew!”)
• a machine that makes purple monkeys with sad faces and happy faces
• two ovens
• [added later: bathtub]

Some words Hayden puts his personal spin on:
woo — you
wuze — use
Werbecca (still)
foon — spoon (and all other words beginning with sp-, sm-, etc.)
[added later: DVDV ("divvydivvy") — DVD]

Words Rebecca can say (at 18 months, in the order she learned them as best I can remember):
des/dah (yes/yeah)
dat (that)
Dada (this was a long time before the next ones)
Mama, Nana, Papa
Beebe (baby, sometimes Pinky)
Deesa (Jesus)
oooh (no)
oosh (shoes or juice)
[added later: mmmmooowa (more, which came after Dada), boo' (book), ba'/bap (bag), ba' (ball), hi, bye]

Words Rebecca can sign:
more
shoes
cookie/treat
Jesus
milk
apple
cheese
Pinky
Hayden
baby
cracker
clean
no more/all gone/all done/FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP CHANGING MY DIAPER!!!!
[added later: hi, byebye, please, thank you, bread, excuse me]

Body parts Rebecca knows:
Hair
Head
Eyes
Ears
Mouth
Nose
Chin
Tongue
Cheek
Neck
Knees (sometimes)
Feet
Toes
Fingers
Hands
Belly

This year, I wanted to get my kids involved in the spirit of Christmas, and not just by having them pick out gifts for cousins or telling the Christmas story every. Single. Night. So I looked for service opportunities in our area, things that the kids could do and maybe even see the people they were helping as they performed their service. (At 3 and 1, they’re still a little young for that, but I wanted to do what they could).

One place that I found great opportunities in our community was the local United Way website. in the volunteering section, you could even search for opportunities by age group—as young as 5. (Five is like three, right?)

I found one that I particularly liked—preparing stockings for underprivileged and homeless families in our area. We bought the stuff and Hayden helped me stuff the stockings. I made sure to take him with me when we dropped them off. We also took some other things they needed for homeless families being placed into housing.

Now, you know I’m not normally one to pass these along, but a few days ago, I got a press release in my email. They pretty much had me the subject line: “Five ways for parents to teach children the true spirit of the holidays.” Here are their suggestions:

1. As a family, select a charitable organization you’d like to support. Use online tools like Charity Navigator to find an organization that you trust. Give your children a budget and encourage them to decide how your family will donate to that organization this holiday.

2. Cherish the stories of your family. Have your children talk to their grandparents and write down the stories of their past. Create a book to share with the entire family or record it online through Story Corps.

3. Consider do-it-yourself gifts, like no-sew fleece blankets, that you can make with your children. Donate those blankets to a local homeless shelter. Find other homemade gift ideas at About.com’s Family Crafts page.

4. Work with your children to create a coupon book for your neighbors that might need an extra hand this year. Coupons could include shoveling their sidewalk, watching their children, or providing a meal.

5. Bake cookies or sweets with your children and deliver them to your local nursing home or school-in-need. Get started with this list of holiday recipes.

(It feels like cheating if I don’t mention the company the press release was supposed to be touting: World Vision’s Gift Catalog, which lets you make a gift purchase—in the name of a friend/family member/whoever—ranging from clothing, shelter and food to education for families in the US and abroad.)

Finally, if you’re looking to make an impact, one non-profit I can recommend is SainTerre. I know it’s not glamorous to discuss, basic sanitation (yeah, potties) is something 2.6 million people live without—not even pit latrines. SainTerre is working to provide the people of West Africa with environmentally-friendly composting toilets, through its non-profit (okay, the business structure is a lot more complicated than that, but you can just stick to that side of it). My cousin was one of the founders, and you can contact him, Ammon Franklin, for information on how to donate.

How have you gotten you children into the spirit of giving this Christmas season?

Photo credits: toddler hands—McBeth; giving rice—Kris