Another Lap

Here are a few tips that I picked up today at my M.O.P.S meeting (mothers of pre-schoolers). The lady who spoke was a specialist in child behavior and development. She was a bundle of energy and was very hard to follow at first.  Kind of the typical global thinker type, jumping from big idea to big idea.  Anyways after getting into the groove of her message I ended up picking up some wonderful and inspiring ways of dealing with my spunky two year old.

Here are the three that I'll be taking with me.

1. Make a heart with your hands and look at your child through it. In other words block out what others are saying, or any other distraction and just look at your child through a small hole. This will narrow down what he/she really needs.

2. Realize that it is our job to help and guide our child through developmental stages. For example if your child is a "sniffer" give them lots of interesting things to smell if your child is an "oral learner" use flavors and cooking or give them chew friendly objects etc.... Most importantly don't try and make them stop just because it's inconvenient.

3. If you notice a problem with your child and his/her development God always gives us another chance to work with them through the issue. She called it "another lap".

This lesson came just in time for me. Lately I have been feeling very frustrated with mothering and have been losing my patience more and more often. Anders is a classic two year old. He's asserting himself, testing the boundaries and doesn't seem to hear me much of the time.  I have felt "pushed around" by a two year old and I have been losing ground. Instead of going the extra mile to challenge and stimulate his little mind and body I have been avoiding doing extra work with him. In turn he has been showing me that he needs more by acting out and pushing back. He is telling me he needs more creativity, more patience and more understanding. 

So, after nap time we are going to have a dance party and then break out the clay that Grandma J. gave him at Christmas. And then I'll take a few ideas from my "play-group handbook". 

Here's to another lap.

I'm sorry but this is just that cutest thing to me!  How can I not post this picture?? I know that there may be some argument with a teenage Anders someday over whether I should have posted  pictures like this but I'm glad I at least have it documented.

Surprisingly Good Sloppy Joe's

Tonight I had planned to make Spaghetti but instead decided to make Sloppy Joe's.  I have never made them so I looked up a couple of recipes on line.  What I came up with was pretty darn good and I was able to hide a bunch of veggies in the mix as well! 

One pound of lean ground beef or turkey

1 half onion

1 small can of tomato paste

1 pkg. brown gravy

veggies cooked and cut up very small pieces

steak or beef seasoning

cumin (tsp.)

salt and pepper

1 half cup brown suger

water or beef broth

Brown onions first in a tbls. of olive oil, add meat and brown

add gravy mix (follow instructions on package)

add tomato paste, veggies, spices and some water or beef broth

simmer and then add brown sugar

Toast whole wheat buns in the oven on 400 degrees for about 8 minutes

Cover buns with the mixture and enjoy! 

This was a winner and I loved how quick it was to make!

True Motherly Sacrifice

Motherly sacrifice is licking your child's strawberry ice cream cone so it doesn't drip, even though you are eating mint chip. The two flavors do not go together!

Oh Fooy!

So, what do you do when your two year old decides to repeat a "not-so-polite" word? Do you scold them? Ignore them? Put them in time-out? 

I'm a little worried about this one and hope Anders outgrows this with the help of Mommy and Daddy only using phrases that are completely non-offensive such as "fooy", "darn", "oopsy daisy", and"oh dip-pity doo".

A theme song

Poop in the potty, poop goes in the potty! Here are the words to Over the Rhine doing a fabulous song all about this lovely subject. 

Don't worry, this won't be my main topic forever. It's just consuming my thoughts and time right now so that's what I'm blogging about...

Potty Time

There comes a time in every toddler's life when they  feel the need to sit on a big kid potty and really really try. I'm proud that Anders is now interested in this task although I was less thrilled this morning at 6:30 when he wanted to try and the bottom of my night gown got soaked in the process. Today he used the potty again and I remembered to put the "guard" up which was smart.

We are using skittles as "wee wee treats" and that's going over very well.

Does anyone have any other bits of "potty training wisdom" that you have learned and that I should know?  I would love the advice!

There's a car in your nose!

Here's a play by play of the old "where did the car go?! Oh I found it in your nose" game.

This never gets old and there have been times where something has been genuinely lost and Anders will ask us to look in his ear just in case it might be in there....

Old Fashioned Fun

I just posted some new links under "Crafty Crafts". There is one that is particularly fun with lots of ideas for games, crafts and other "old fashioned" fun.  Have a look and see if any of the ideas sound like fun. 

I got a copy of "The Play Group Handbook" from my mom. This book has some GREAT activities for pre-school age children. Here is a link to the Amazon site.  The Above copy is the 1974 version of the book and I like the funky well worn look of it. A lot of great play ideas have come out of this book!

Here's to some January fun!

Visiting

Yesterday Anders and I had a very satisfying day down in La Habra. Since we've moved it has been a fun adventure to drive the hour and some (depending on traffic). We've used our Disney passes, spent a day visiting my parents and yesterday we spent time with Anders friend Aubrey who lived in our old apartment building before we moved.

Then we spent the rest of the day at my Grandparents house where a nap was in order as well as some fun time outside and then dinner.

As some of you know, my Grandparents have an amazing crop of fruit trees which are aided by a top notch compost pile. The orange tree happens to be right next to the compost pile and the oranges are freakishly huge this year. I'm sure they will unusually juicy as well. 

I really enjoyed spending time with my friend Kelly, Aubrey's mom while Anders and Aubrey played. They really are buddies and it's fun to see them remember each other and actually play together.

Frivolity

The last two weeks have been filled with family. Chris' mom was here for a week before Christmas and left on the 27th, then Chris' dad and Aunt came out on the 27th in the evening and stayed through this morning. The whole time both of my sisters and their families were in town visiting from the Dallas area and staying with my parents. 

With all of the picture taking going on there had to be at least one HORRIBLE picture. It happened to be of Chris and so, yes, I had to include it for the enjoyment all. I'm sure you will find it in one glance....

Today Erin my younger sister and her husband Jim came to spend the day with us. They brought along their little guy Garrett who loves to have a sock handy to hold under his nose at all times... he's pretty darn cute. 

The highlight of the day was when Chris and Jim took over the kitchen to cook up some sirloin steaks that we received for Christmas.  It was lovely to sit in the dining room and watch as the guys slaved away! As you can see my little kitchen is in complete chaos after constant entertaining. Oh, I can't wait until the house can go back to it's normal state of no Christmas decorations and minimal chaos... soon!

Anders had a blast through all of the visits and was positively showered with attention. That made for some interesting moments when he thought that because he was so popular he could get away with things like stealing Aunt Mary's walker, trying to take food off of other peoples plates as well as more overt and rebellion against me and Chris. Needless to say it didn't go over too well with us.

Of course he was perfectly sweet most of the time and managed to win over Grandma J., Grandpa J. and Aunt Mary despite the walker stealing.

Tomorrow most of the decorations will come down, Chris goes back to work and Anders and I will return to a somewhat normal schedule. We'll miss all of the fun and excitement but know that it will come again next year.