Two

Our little girl turned 2 last week. It seems like a big milestone in the life of a kid. Perhaps it's more of a big milestone in the life of a parent. I can't even imagine what this next year is going to be like, potty training, big-girl bed...lots of changes for all of us. Let's reminisce about the past.

After an easy pregnancy and quick delivery we welcomed our sweet girl into our family. We were blessed. Our biggest hurdle was nursing but we worked through it. One of the best things I think we did in the early months was sleep training. I will continue to be an advocate for it as it has helped Hadley be a great sleeper and given us some peace. Hadley seems to have come out of sleep training without any side effects. The first year flew by and Hadley seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. Little did I know what the second year would bring.

Hadley started walking almost exactly at 13 months and she's been running since. Some of those runs ended with a busted lip but we all survived! She started talking more and being more independent. Hadley now likes to put two or more words together and has some of the funniest phrases. She calls motorcycles 'papa cycles' because her papa (my dad) rides a motorcycle. She also likes to say 'adios 'migos.' She's starting to ask lots of questions like, "Who is that?" or " Where is...?"Despite a small setback on our trip to Costa Rica, Hadley loves to play in the water.

She keeps us laughing and smiling. We can't give her enough hugs and kisses and certainly can't get enough from her. She surprises us with her conversations or actions and we wonder where she learned those things. Her "surprised" face is super cute, when she's found something or figured something out. She loves "helping" with making muffins or stirring scrambled eggs. She even liked to help with the kitchen remodel when we let her.

This past weekend we had two parties for her. Two because we have so many people who love our little girl, we feel blessed, we didn't have enough room in our home to fit everyone at once. The first party was for all her friends (and our friends). We had her new pool set up so the kids could swim and cooked hot dogs and hamburgers. She helped me make the cupcakes for the party which were decorated with red, blue, yellow, and green. None of which she ate (this kid, healthy though it is, is not really a fan of dessert food). We did a Sesame Street theme since she likes Elmo. I think it's safe to say everyone had a good time. The second party was the next day and was for family. Unfortunately, I got the stomach flu about 2 hours before everyone showed up so I pretty much laid in our bedroom the whole time. I felt so bad for not being out there celebrating my little girl with family, but I think she had a good time.

Fun in the pool

Blowing out the candle

Opening presents with Dad

Gone But Not Forgotten

I've been absent from the blogging world for a few days, thus continuing my consistent inconsistency. However, this time I feel like I have a valid excuse beside laziness. We have been working non-stop on our floor. My poor husband has come home every night after work and worked on it for at least 2-3 hours straight and then we just go to bed. He did a wonderful job though and the floor is done and looks great. We still need to do all the baseboards and just a little bit of painting and that will complete the kitchen remodel. From step one to today it has taken us about 4 months. Needless to say I'm ready for it to be done.

Our parenting class has finished, we are almost done with softball, and Hadley's birthday parties (which I'm scrambling to prep) are this weekend. Next week I think I'll just collapse on the couch and do nothing. Well maybe I'll blog and read and get to organizing things and......

Parenting tools impelemented

Yesterday I shared some new tools Jon and I learned at our recent parenting class, Love & Logic. Today I'll share what we are implementing with our 2 year old.

So meal times are generally a struggle, as with most kids I believe. We were always worried she wasn't getting all the nutrition she needed so we're working to be a little more sneaky at each meal. Overall though we do not force her to eat. I refuse to get in a power struggle with her where we both end up frustrated and exhausted. One new statement we learned from our parenting class goes something like this: "Make sure you get enough to hold you over until breakfast (or whatever is the next meal)." We don't allow her to eat an hour later if she didn't eat her dinner and now seems hungry. When we have another kid and they are both older I'm not about to serve dinner at 4 different times. A Love and Logic way to deal with children who like to eat on their own schedule is to say, "Dinner is served from 5-6 so make sure you get enough to eat before dinner is cleaned up."


How does this work with a 2 year old you may ask? While she may not understand fully what we say, she will fully understand our actions the more consistent we are with them. Of course she'll learn the language along with our actions. The idea is to teach her to manage herself and her hunger. Again, since she's still little and can't manage her own nutrition Jon and I watch what we give her in case breakfast is the only time she's eating. I do not cater to her preferences for dinner, she eats what we eat. Breakfast and lunch are times where we offer her limited options though. As she gets older I hope we start putting more responsibility on her to manage her nutrition.

"Bedroom Time" (aka timeout) is another tool we are using. There is a little song that goes along with it. Essentially if your child is misbehaving/whining, in a cool calm voice you say, "Uh oh, looks like a little bedroom time coming up. How sad." And while you are singing that little diddy you gently put them in their room or in our case we put Hadley in her crib. I initially had a problem with this because I thought I don't want her to confuse her crib with timeout. Then I heard it explained as there should be no negative connotation to putting them there for timeout because if you are truly using a calm, empathetic voice the child will not have a negative association. We also, leave her door open for now, so she doesn't think it's bed time. As she gets older and gets a big-girl bed that may have to change. We also tell Hadley before we walk away, "When you're sweet you can come back." Within a minute or two she stops crying, we give her another minute or two as "quiet time" and then we go get her. Love & Logic says not to lecture about what she did wrong or remind her, because she knows why she was there. We give her a kiss, tell her welcome back and we're so glad she's calmed down. As a side note, we started time out before this class and her spot was in the hallway. We've since modified calling time out to "take some time to calm down, bedroom time, or take a minute for yourself." Just this week I've had to start putting her in her crib because she is just now starting to walk away from the spot.

We are working on the enforceable statements, "Little girls who eat their dinner get dessert." "Feel free to play with your toys once you pick up your shoes," are a few examples. I'm still not sure if she fully comprehends what those mean but she generally follows through and we continue to practice so it will be second nature as she gets older.

One more tip I did not include yesterday, but I think is great to use with toddlers is the Energy Drain. For example: Johnny has bedroom time 4 times throughout the day, which is exhausting to his mom. Later that evening he wants to watch Elmo. His mom says, "How sad. I don't have any energy to turn Elmo on because I had to put you in your bedroom 4 times today. Maybe I'll have more energy tomorrow."

For older children who can do chores around the house it would be best to say, "Can you think of a way to give mom an energy boost?" Then the kid can list several chores and you chose which one, or maybe all, will give you your drained energy back. This can take place over several days too, depending on the amount of "energy" drained.

Parenting

Jon and I have just finished a 7-week parenting class called Love and Logic. I know several times I've posted on FB how much I've learned in the class. In fact I wish I had taken this as a new teacher, it would have saved me a lot of energy, tears, and frustration as well as helped build better relationships with my students. In a world of entitled, spoiled kids it was difficult to teach them respect and kindness. Just having a few of the different phrases Love and Logic offers would have made a world of difference for me and I believe for my students too. But alas, that is the past. If I ever go back in to teaching I know how to use it all. The great part is they actually have an entire set of curriculum just for educators. I now have my own child to focus on.

Here are some basic tips we learned from the class:

- Give children lots of options when appropriate so when you have to make a choice for them (i.e. for their safety) they are willing to go along with you. Say, "We usually give you a lot of choices right? Like we let you choose what to wear, what to eat, etc.? Well there are times were we need to make decisions for you and this is one of those times. Ok?" There are rules on giving choices that are discussed in class, because obviously not all situations are ripe for giving a child options.

- Give heavy doses of empathy. They caution against the empathy sounding like sarcasm. Not only does this let the child know you care about what they are experiencing in the situation but it also helps the parent control their anger. You don't want the child to focus on how angry you are, you want them to focus on the issue. Say, "Oh how sad....."

- Let the consequences do the teaching. The overall idea of this parenting technique is letting your children essentially fail at a young age when the consequences are small so when they become adults they are better at thinking for themselves, predicting consequences, and accepting responsibility.

- It's ok to delay consequences, especially if you need time to think of one. Make sure you give yourself and your child a deadline for a consequence. Say, "We'll talk about this later, but don't worry about it. " or "Don't worry I'll take care of it." (There is still a consequence when the parent has to take care of something for the child).

- Allow the child to think of ways to solve a problem. a) Give a dose of empathy; b) send a power message, "what do you think you are going to do about it?" c) Offer choices of what "other" kids might do. d) have the child state the consequences of each choice. e) Give permission for the child to either solve the problem or not solve the problem, "Good luck, I hope it works out." This process has so many positive impacts on a child.

- Use enforceable statements. Say, "You're welcome to go outside as soon as you finish your homework." or "Feel free to go over to your friends house once your room is clean." It avoids the buzz word, "no" that most children will latch on to and argue with you about.

What Love and Logic is NOT about -- Reminding children over and over again to get something done, lecturing children on what they did wrong, spending energy worrying or fixing the problems your child creates (aka enabling), angry and yelling parents.

These tips we learned are summarized and certainly not exhaustive. There are guidelines to follow to make each part of the process a success. The only way to successfully implement this and feel encouraged to do it is to attend a class. While Jon and I were always wanting the same for our children it's a whole different ball game to execute discipline and consequences to help our children get there. I feel like this has given Jon and I a concrete structure to follow so we are on the same page with how to handle situations. I like that each process they offer, like allowing the child to solve the problem, is general enough to use for a variety of situations. So one strategy doesn't work just for dinner time issues. I'm not worrying about what to do when situation A happens because we have an outline to follow for situations A, B, & C.

Of course we can't implement everything at this moment with Hadley. A 2 year old can't really solve all her own problems but we are letting the consequences do the teaching. Tomorrow I'll share a strategy we are already implementing with Hadley.

PS - If you are interested in taking this class our church, Pantano Christian Church, offers it about 3 times throughout the year and it does not have anything to do with religious or spiritual issues, although it does fit well with biblical teachings. So don't worry about being preached at or about being a member of our church, it's open to anyone. It also doesn't matter what age your children are, and frankly if you're a new teacher or seasoned teacher (without kids) interested in taking it for your students, I'd sign up!

Let the Camping Begin

Our new tent

Our camp

This past weekend we headed up to the Pinalenos mountain range (aka Mt. Graham) for a fun weekend of camping our Life Group. Friday morning we met 3 other familes at I-10 and Houghton and drove off. After a few planned and unplanned stops we finally started up the mountain road. It had been a long time since I had been on this mountain but I knew the road was full of hairpin turns and I had remembered correctly. After about 20 minutes we arrived at our campsite, Upper Arcadia of the Arcadia Campground.


The group site for the campground was apart from other camp sites which was nice. However, there was a road that went through our camp to access water reserve tanks and the gate was locked at the beginning of the road. This meant we had to park our vehicles and carry our camp equipment to the site. It was probably about 20-30 yards but it still made things a little more difficult. The campsite also didn't have the best areas for tents but we made it work. There were a lot of huge trees offering shade throughout the day, 6 nice cement tables, two large bear-boxes for storing our food, and toilets.

We arrived at the campsite at about 2 in the afternoon and started unloading our cars. We had all our tents setup and had checked in with the nice camp host when another family arrived, the Robinsons, with all the cooking gear. We helped them unload and get the kitchen area set up when the last family of the day arrived. The weather was wonderful! Not too cold and not too hot.

The Kitchen area

We ended up making our own fire ring out of big rocks, as the one provided was not in a good spot for the amount of people we were going to have. All we had to do was tear it down before we left on Sunday. It was time for dinner so while other families made a Hobo dinner, we roasted some polish dogs over the fire and they were delicious!

Hadley hadn't been feeling well before we left. Thursday she had a low fever but by Friday she seemed better. She didn't sleep much Friday so she was ready for bed Friday night. The kids were put to bed and the adults stayed around the campfire making s'mores and talking. It was a nice evening.

That night when we went to bed my legs and knees were aching really bad so I had a hard time falling asleep. It wasn't too cold and so I think I fell asleep around midnight. About 3am I was woken up by blaring rap music and Jon rustling around in his ammo box. He said he was going to go out and talk to whoever was out there and he was taking his gun with him just for safety. I was then wide awake with my heart pounding, listening to what was going on. I heard some guys talking and then a car drive off. Jon came back and said it had been a couple of drunk guys looking for a place to drink. They had pulled right up to the closed gate by our campground. Most likely they were residents of the nearby town Safford. I'm pretty sure Mt. Graham is the equivalent for Safford as Mt. Lemmon is for Tucson. I don't know how these guys were so plastered and made it up the windy mountain road safely. Both of us were wide awake now, I was kind of freaked out just not knowing if those guys would do anything to our vehicles parked out there or even come back to our camp to mess with us. I was very grateful for Jon asking them to leave and scared at the same time. About 3 minutes later we heard a car drive up and headlights were shining right into our tent (we were closest to the driveway). We both laid in the tent listening while the car idled there for a few minutes. Jon got back up and stood outside the tent waiting to see what they would do. After a few minutes they left, Jon walked down to check on all of our cars and then came back. They must have thought they found a new place to bump their music and drink and then realized it was the same place. I was fairly certain we'd find out they drove off the mountain on the way down, but there was nothing. Needless to say Jon and I didn't sleep the rest of the morning.

Saturday we were exhausted but ready to have a good day. We enjoyed some delicious breakfast burritos made by the Robinsons and hung out. One more family showed up early that morning and got their tent set up. By 11 that morning we had a group getting ready to go on a hike and 3 more families showing up to join our camping group. With everyone at camp who planned on coming and ready to hike we set off to the trail head of the Arcadia trail which ended right in our camp. It was a long hike and rough hike but what a fun adventure and memory. There had been a fire so a lot of trees were fallen in the middle of the trail and burnt to a crisp. A few of the logs we were able to push out of the way but most we had to climb over or under with one side of the mountain all uphill and the other side all downhill. It was neat to see all the new growth coming back along the trail and there were definitely some spectacular views. It took us about 3 hours and we finally made it back to camp. Jon was carrying Hadley the whole way and they both did great!

Hadley enjoying a Capri Sun

Hadley missed her nap again and became pretty whiny so we decided to check her temperature. Our thermometer battery was dead, of course, so we just gave her some ibuprofen in case her fever had come back. It was hard to tell if she was warm just by touching her forehead because our hands were cold and she had been running around a bit. We made lunch and hung out around camp. Dinner came and our camp host joined us. He was a nice guy, a sort of vagabond, traveling from campground to campground as a camp host. He ate quite a bit and was grateful for the invitation. We again put the kids to bed and enjoyed s'mores and hot cocoa around the campfire. Jon and I were exhausted so we went to bed first. The weather had gotten considerably colder and yet again I had a hard time sleeping.

Jon and I were ready to leave early Sunday morning but we didn't want to leave without helping everyone else pack up so we got everyone packed up, destroyed our fire ring, cleaned up camp and headed back to Tucson by about 10. The Johnsons were following with us down the mountain so we all stopped at The Thing (Jon and I have yet to actually go in there) for lunch and a DQ treat. Then home. We reached home around 1:30, unpacked, showered, and NAPPED. It's been a long time since I've slept so hard. Jon and I took a 2 hour nap and Hadley took a 3 hour nap. It was awesome!  Turns out Hadley was still running a low temp so I think that along with no naps during the day made it a little harder of a trip for her but overall we had a great time!

We have a few more camping trips planned for the summer and I'm so looking forward to them! I love the memories we make as a family (and life group) when we go. It was something I cherished as a kid and I hope Hadley does too.

Bin Laden

About 54 years ago a child was born. A child God created. And on May 2, 2011, it was announced to the world this child was killed. Osama Bin Laden became the most wanted man in the world. Whether his followers had more respect for him or his enemies wanted him dead, he was a sought-after man. I was deeply saddened that such a man would wish and execute the death of others. I was equally as saddened that people, Christians especially, would wish this man dead. I can easily say what he did is not as bad as the lie I told last week but truly the statement goes against what I really believe, all sin is equal.

I go back and forth on this event. The God of the Old Testament allowed victories and assassinations in wars. The Bible also clearly states God hardened Pharoh's heart, apparently influencing this man's decisions. So God does bring justice through humans, as it appears. Does this all change with Jesus' new Covenant? I know the beliefs and actions of Bin Laden is not in line with who God is. Is it ok to say, "God Bless America, We killed Bin Laden"? I have a hard time believing God is celebrating Bin Laden's death. We are told God delights in His creation. It could be argued God hardened Bin Laden's heart just as he did Pharoh's, but does this mean God is less saddened by Bin Laden's death? I guess I can't say for sure. I tend to think not.

A few things I know, as Christians we are told the greatest commandment is Love. Wishing the death of someone, no matter their iniquities, is not loving. I also know justice is not ours (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:19) and mercy is better than judgement (James 2:13). I appreciate the military and all their service and sacrifices in this war. I sympathize with people who lost loved ones in the attack on 9/11. I am angered at the evil of terrorism which has affected so many. I am disappointed in the attitudes of Christians throughout this whole thing.

These are just the thoughts I have running around in my head about this whole situation.