Ben's Baptism (Update pt. 1)

Ben was baptized on March 25. Here are a few pictures of the day.
At church about to be baptized (sidenote, we've gone to this church for 4 years, but just officially joined last Sunday. Either we take commitments like this seriously or we're just lazy. Could be both).
Obviously he's mad he can't have a piece of cake and has to watch everyone else enjoy it.With my friend Kristin, who is his sponsor/Godmother. Check out Ben's Guayabara shirt. I'm kind of in love with it, and hope we can find another occasion to wear it for.
Colin is missing from this family photo because was being entertained happily downstairs.It was a special day for Benjamin, filled with lots of love. Although we're not openly religious people, we wholeheartedly believe in God and we're are excited to see Ben grow in faith.


Uh, sorry Ben, I'm about to hijack your baptism post here....
While we're on the subject of church/religion, here's a story that has nothing to do with Ben's baptism.

We were at church this morning and the Pastor was talking about Jesus. Colin looked at me and said, "I know Jesus." I asked him what he meant and he wouldn't tell me anymore, but it did make me smile. Oh, and also last Sunday, he randomly kissed me on the forehead in church. Some of his sweetest moments happen in pews.

Sorry Ben.

Story time funny

Colin was helping me read "Panda Bear, Panda Bear What do you See?" today before nap. We got to the last page where all the animals are and he was saying the second word of each animal.

Me: Spider... Colin: Monkey
Me: Green sea... Colin: Turtle
Me: Macaroni.... Colin: Cheese (it's supposed to be penguin)

I burst out laughing so hard I was crying and Kevin had to read the rest of the page for me.

Developing Memory

This week, I taught Colin how to do the Chicken Dance. I know, I hate that damn song/dance too, but it's so fun for little kids. He loves to do the dance. Today we were at the park and Colin and I were up on the playground equipment. Rocket climbed up onto the equipment too, and he didn't want to go through the tunnel to get to us, so I told Colin that Rocket was being a chicken. So what does Colin do? The chicken dance, of course!

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We checked out 3 books at the library on Tuesday. Two of them are Curious George and the other is a lift-the-flap book about opposites. We have read them at least once a day since Tuesday, and today Colin opened up the Opposites book and started reciting the opposites: clean/dirty, sad/happy, wet/dry, hot/cold, upside down (but not right side up). It was one of those moments where I had to call Kevin to quickly come see.

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Yesterday before we left to pick up our pottery, I told Colin that we were going to pick up the painting he made. Then he started to "tell" me that he had paint on his hand and he put it on the plate.


It just amazes me that all of a sudden, he remembers events that happened days ago. I love to watch him learn and recall what we do, see, and read.

Spring Break Day 5

At 2:20 a.m., Kevin I awoke to Colin saying, "Mama potty." I wearily asked Kevin, "Was that potty or puppy?" (sometimes they sound the same). Kevin said he thought it was potty. We jumped out of bed and I asked Colin if he wanted his puppy. He said, "potty." Away we hurried to the potty, with Colin's teddy bear's head in a choke hold under his armpit. He went potty, we re-diapered him and we put him back to bed. As we climbed back in to our own bed, I said to Kevin, "That was interesting." Mystifying, amazing, all of that.

This morning we went to the pool to swim. Mr. and Mrs. L. said we could use one of their guest passes so we could get in for free. We took swimming lessons last summer, but he was so much more comfortable swimming this time. There weren't many people there aside from a few lap swimmers and a water aerobics class. He liked to pretend he was a fish, and he did a great job of kicking his legs. He really liked just being dragged around the pool and watching people and enjoying the water moving around him most.

Swimming wore him out because he slept for about 2 and a half hours, and then he woke up and slept on my lap for another half hour.

This afternoon we picked up our pottery that we painted on Saturday. Here's the plate I made for Colin to use on his birthdays. The cupcakes are his hand prints (minus the thumb):
And here's Colin's first pottery masterpiece:
Still not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'd like to display it somewhere, somehow.

After picking up the pottery, and Colin and I stopped at Once Upon a Child. I hadn't been in one, so I wanted to see what kind of bargains were there (nothing good enough to buy, although I did consider a pair of rain boots). Then we went to the fabric store. Colin was doing just fine there until he saw a cart and he wanted to push it. The store was not busy at all, so I let him push the cart. Then he ran into a shelf and knocked it down. In an effort to not wreak havoc on the entire store, I said he had to sit in the cart and I put him in it. Enter tantrum. I pushed the cart back to it's spot and we left. On our way out, I told the employees that it was our first store tantrum and there's nobody even there to see it. Disappointing.

This evening after supper we went for a walk. Colin directed us to the school's park, so he went down a few slides.

Two more weekend days and my awesome week will be over. Would it be pathetic if I started counting down to summer now? 11 more weeks (with some days off due to Memorial Day and Easter). Seems so long, but knowing I only have 11 more weeks to make a difference in my students' lives seems like a heavy burden to bear.

"'Mout"

We don't really do a whole lot of time outs. There have been times when he has been throwing a tantrum or whatever and we sit him on the couch and say "time out," but I'd say the total number of times we've done that is about five. It gives him a chance to cool off and then tell us what he wants rather than have a tantrum.

Well, Colin's newest thing is giving himself a Time Out, or what he calls "Mout."

Sometimes when I'm wrestling him to change his diaper, I tell him he needs to lay still or he will get a time out. He looks at me, says "Mout" and sits in the glider chair for a few minutes. Sometimes he'll play a game where he gets out of his chair and then runs back to it, but *usually* after he sits there for a few minutes, he'll get out and be ready to get the diaper on again.

On Thursday when I picked him up from Sandy's, he didn't want to get his coat and boots on and just straight out told me "Mout." So he sat on her little bench while I talked to Sandy with my back towards him. Within a few minutes, he was ready to be cooperative and get ready.

I can only hope that as we approach the two-year mark that he'll give himself Time Outs. However, I do believe it's his little experiment at this point.

A Creature of Habit

Colin seems to thrive on the routine and predictable. Every morning, one of the first 3 words he says is banana ("nanny"). That's what he eats every morning if we have bananas. If we don't, he eats a cinnamon Eggo waffle. Every morning on our way to daycare, we pass a farm with cows. We say "moo" to them, and then Colin says, "more." I tell him to keep watching for more cows, even though we both know we won't see any more.

Every afternoon on our drive home, we pass a parking lot that used to house a big, bright blue truck. We're not sure what happened to it, but every day we talk about it. At some point, Colin asks, "Daddy?" and I say that Daddy's at work. Then Colin says, "bye bye." When we pass by the construction site by our house, we check to see if the dig-digs are working. They usually aren't, so Colin says "done."

At 5:00, crankiness sets in and dinner is made. He's feeling good again at 5:30 when food is on the table. At 7:00 he's ready to take a bath and he likes to make the children in Africa who have no clean water cringe because he likes to keep the water running.

At 7:15 or so, he's out of the tub, into his pjs and ready to climb into his crib. He puts his puppy on his right, and seahorse is to his left. He turns seahorse's music on, gets covered up with a blanket and says, "bye bye" to us. Then, as we're walking out, he'll say, "Mama!" to try to get me to play games with him. I've learned it's best if I walk away. He stops after saying it about 3 times, and then crashes. But if I respond, he gets cranky and doesn't fall asleep quickly.

He usually wakes up at 4-something. Kevin works his magic and Colin goes back to sleep. 60% of the time, he wakes up at 5-something and comes to sleep in our bed with us, although he is getting better at sleeping later in his own crib these days.

Predictability makes life a little easier because you know what to expect. As a teacher, I know that routines are very important to some kids. Others could care less about them.

Colin's newest words are:
Daddy (instead of Dada)
down
no ("mo")
done
snow ("mo")
puppy ("buddy")
banana ("nanny"<--that's his new word for banana. His old word was "nana.")
Sandy ("DeeDee")
play ("pay")
choo choo ("doo-doo" with the arm going up and down too, sometimes)
bubble ("bubbo")
puzzle ("bubbo")
piece ("petes")
ice
plate ("bate")
seat
please ("peese")
apple ("appo")
waffle ("wabbo")
more ("mo")
on
spoon ("boon")
cut ("dut")
boots
hat
mittens ("minis")
socks ("ots")
bounce
boing
ear
feet ("beet")
Grandma ("Amma")
books ("buts" <--with an accent of some sort over the u so it sounds like the /oo/ in books.)
home

In addition, he tends to repeat the last word of whatever we say. So if I say, "Let's go potty," He'll say "potty."

Every day, it seems like he says one more new word. It's amazing this explosion of words that we're seeing right before our eyes. I love it.

Paci and Potty

We have officially gotten rid of the pacifier! ::insert happy dance here:: We followed the Bye-Bye-Binky method, and within 5 days, the pacifier was down to a 1/2 inch stub. Colin got very frustrated at it and kept signing "help" and kept trying to pull it out more. Then we got the scissors out and asked him if he wanted it cut off, and he said yes. Then there was nothing left except the plastic part. He got really mad then. And he didn't sleep well AT ALL for about 2 or 3 nights. He had grown accustomed to falling asleep without his nukie, but for those first few nights he kept waking up every hour or two wanting it. It's a lot easier to not give in when there's nothing to give :)

I'm telling you people, the change is awesome. When the pacifier was in-use during the wee hours, he'd want to read books and rock for awhile before bed (not that I hated that part! I loved that time we spent together). Now that it's gone, after he gets his pajamas on, he runs out into the hallway to yell, "DADA! Na-nye!" Then he tries to crawl into his crib while he waits for Kevin to comes into his room. Colin gives us each hugs and kisses, and lies down in his crib, gets covered up with his blanket, and says, "bye bye" to us. How freakin' easy is that? And now when he wakes up, it's because one of his teeth is busting through. After a little bit of orajel, he goes right back to sleep.

Colin has been spending an hour every night in underwear for the past few weeks. Over the weekend, Colin wore his training pants for a few hours in the morning and evening. He peed on his potty about 10 times, and pooped once or twice too! He doesn't quite have the foresight set to tell us if he needs to go yet, so he needs to be reminded, but usually he'll go every hour or so. He also knows when he doesn't have to go. I gave Sandy the go-ahead to try it at daycare, and it didn't work out so well. She wants him to wear pants there, otherwise all the other kids want to prance around sans pants, and that's just not going to work. He'll sit on her potty for 10-15 minutes but won't do anything. So we're waiting until he feels comfortable going potty there before we send underwear again. Colin knows how to say "pee," "poop," and "potty" now, and sometimes he tries to pull up his underwear/pants. If he's not trained by Christmas break, my plan is to hit it hard then as much as I can and hopefully start off 2011 with no diaper laundry!

Weekend antecdotes

Colin is able to open the refrigerator and get his sippy cup, take a drink, put it back, and close the door without any help from us.

A little while after he woke up from his nap today, I was sitting here in the office and he signed "milk" and said "ma!" (his word for milk). I told him to go get a drink and I stayed in here. 30 seconds later, he walked into the office carrying the whole half-gallon of milk and saying, "ma." Apparently there wasn't a sippy cup ready to go in the fridge for him.

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Last night after supper, Colin had a lot of water to drink. He went pee on the potty before his bath, took a bath, and ran around the house naked for awhile. All of a sudden, Kevin and I heard pee hitting the floor. I scooped him up and sat him back on his potty while Kevin cleaned up the mess. Colin told me to sit on the toilet seat, so I did. A few seconds later, he stood up, did his potty dance (even though there was no pee in it), and promptly projectile vomited. All the water he drank, plus the excitement of running around naked must have upset his tummy a little. He looked at me like he didn't know what had just come out of his mouth. I cleaned him up, re-brushed his teeth, and put him to bed. All I can say is I'm sure glad he told me to sit on the toilet, otherwise he would have thrown up all over me!

Lessons from Andy Griffith

Sandy told me a story about something that happened earlier this week at daycare. M, who's 3, was dumping sand on the other kids, including Colin. The next day, Colin dumped a shovelful of sand on M. Sandy told M that the reason why he shouldn't dump sand on the littler kids is because they learn that they should do it too.

My first reaction when Sandy told me the story was, "Atta boy, Colin!" I said it out loud. But then no sooner than I said it, I began to doubt if I should say it at all. As a teacher, I constantly tell students that they need to "use their words" to work out problems. If someone is bugging them, they need to tell them to stop, not to use their hands or be aggressive. I teach the students the golden rule. Treat others how you want to be treated. Schools suspend and expel students for aggressive behavior.

As a parent, I want Colin to stand up for himself. If someone isn't treating him nicely, I want him to be able to show the bully who's boss. Even if it means just "getting him back" by giving him a taste of his own medicine.

As I was thinking this through, I was reminded of a classic Andy Griffith Show episode, titled "Opie and the Bully." The bully, Sheldon, meets Opie on the street before school and bullies him into giving him his nickel for milk or he'll get a knuckle sandwich. Every day, Opie asks two adults (Aunt Bee, Andy, or Barney) for a nickel. But the adults don't know that he's getting two every day--one for Sheldon, and one for himself. Barney finds out that Opie is being bullied and tells Andy. Opie doesn't know that Andy knows when they go fishing together...

Click here...for the in-a-nutshell lesson, watch 3:00 through 7:15.

...Opie shows up at the courthouse later that day with a shiner on his eye, and exclaims, "Ain't it a beaut?!" He tells his dad that it didn't hurt, and that he laughed. Then he lit into Sheldon like a tornado. And I bet Sheldon didn't bother Opie for a nickel anymore. Opie's shiner went away, and I can rightfully assume that Sheldon's did too.

Of course, most little playground disputes can be settled using only words. But as we know from recent headlines, there's a certain point where words just don't work anymore. Apparently schools aren't doing enough, either. Even with the anti-bully messages/lessons/programs that are circulating throughout. What's wrong with a knuckle sandwich once in a lifetime? Black eyes heal, and the lessons that are taught by getting them are sometimes worth it.

What I love most about this episode is that Andy didn't go calling Sheldon's parents saying, "My little Opie tells me that your mean Sheldon is being a bully and taking nickels away from him every day before school. What are you (or we) going to do about this?" He lets Opie settle it for himself and teaches him to stand up for himself and don't let a bully push him around. I highly doubt that just because Opie did it once, he'll do it over and over again to anybody who is ever mean to him.

Funny how a minor sandbox squabble can get you to think about your kid as school-aged and having to deal with life's decisions on his own, isn't it?

What do you think? Does a bully deserve a knuckle sandwich every once in awhile? Or should we stick to words?

How Colin fell asleep for naptime today

Kevin and Colin are feelin' the Moby love. Kevin even said I could keep him in the Moby while he continued to mow the lawn, but I thought Colin would get a better nap if he was in his crib, so I made the transfer. Cherry on top...he fell asleep without his pacifier!!!

I'll whisper this so the gods don't hear me...Colin has been pacifier-free during the daytime (excluding naps and bedtime) for 4 days straight! Today is the 5th day! If this continues, I'll let you in on my "little pacifier weaning secret for stubborn boys."

Sweetness.

I was rocking Colin and singing to him before bedtime last night. Usually I sing 3 or 4 songs. I start with Twinkle Twinkle and end with Jesus Loves Me. Tonight, when I got to Jesus Loves Me, Colin hugged me a little tighter. Then when I was done, he signed "more." He has NEVER done that when I've sung to him. So I sang another song. When I was done, he signed it again. Repeat about 3 times. Every time I started a new song, he snuggled back in, then when it was done, he looked straight in my eyes and signed "more." So finally, I sang Jesus Loves Me one more time and called it a night. Luckily he didn't argue, but I could've sang him songs all night.

This sweetness totally makes up for the high-pitched, obnoxiously loud screaming he was doing at the grocery store on Monday.

Love my boy.

Poopy cues

Again this morning, Colin showed awareness of needing a diaper change. He pooped in his diaper, then took a diaper out of the laundry basket that was in the living room, and gave it to Kevin. So Kevin changed him.

Now if only we can catch him in the act.