parenting

Shi Shi

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Evie has an imaginary friend that she talks about sometimes, named Shi Shi. Shi Shi doesn’t come up all that often, but I imagine as time goes on she will probably come up more and more.

So, the other day I was laying on the floor in Evie’s room and Evie said to me, “Shi Shi is in the closet. Open the door, she wants to come out.” I was like, “No honey, nobody’s in the closet.” She absolutely insisted that Shi Shi was in there to the point that I actually started to get a little creeped out. Eventually, I slowly cracked the door open, half expecting some alien to jump on my face and suck my brains through my nose, but of course nothing happened. I closed the closet quickly and asked Evie if Shi Shi had come out and she said, “No, she’s still in there.” So I opened the door a second time thinking maybe Shi Shi was the ghost of some murdered child who died in the closet and now lives in our house. “She came out,” said Evie and nonchalantly went back to playing with her barn.

Apparently I had a similar story when I was a kid, in which I insisted with such fervor that my imaginary friend was coming to dinner (Casper the Friendly Ghost in case you were wondering) that my mom started to think maybe someone (something?) really would show up for dinner.

Evie has been cracking us up lately by calling Sara and me “guys”. Like, she’ll say, “Guys? You’re done eating?” Definitely one of the best part of having kids is when they say these very adult things and just crack you up.

Speaking of good things about parenting, I have been very proud lately of Evie’s manners. She is very polite and I even overheard a comment from a stranger at the museum about how well mannered she was. She consistently says “thank you” and “please” (although this one takes some reminding. She mostly only uses it if it looks like you are going to say no) and she’ll say “excuse me” when she wants to get by somebody (I get a kick out of hearing her say, “Excuse me Nala” when Nala is in her way) and she says “no thank you” if you offer he something she doesn’t want. She’s also pretty good about “bless you” for sneezes.

The other day she was rocking in her chair and, thanks to her Richard Scary book, she said, “That’s piggy manners!” (as opposed to kitty manners. It doesn’t hurt that her favorite animal happens to be the one to have good manners)

In other news, we made some lemon oregano drumsticks the other day and they looked so beautiful coming off the grill I actually had to take a picture. And the smell! Oh man, it smelled like some sort of festival or something was going on on our back porch. I actually had two different neighbors comment on the smell! Let me tell you, that is putting your grill to full use, boy howdy.

More Evie-isms

/ Shane / 3 Comments

I think I passed a major milestone as a parent and I just wanted to blog it so that I didn’t forget this magical moment. Evie gave me my first “I don’t love you!” when I was trying to force her to go potty against her will. I imagine this will be the first of many, in fact, I’ve already gotten an “I don’t like you” since then.

There have been a few humorous ones as well:

“When Jen and Derek were here and Daddy catch me [by the face because I fell down the stairs because I was trying to look at Jen and Derek instead of watching where I was going]. I want to do it again!” She has made this statement many times and we’ve had many long talks about why we don’t want to fall down the stairs.

Thanks to Grandma Kathy, Evie insists that she needs to put her “deoder on” because she doesn’t want to “stink”. Sara spend quite a while convincing her she didn’t, in fact, stink.

Finally, this happened awhile ago, but Evie has a book in which a girl goes to the doctor with an injured arm. Knowing that Evie has vivid memories of her own trip to the doctor with an injured arm, Sara asked her, “Why is the girl crying?” Evie responded, “Because she has pony tails!”

In completely unrelated, horrific death news, a man died Wednesday after he fell into an 8 foot vat of molten chocolate. I had a lot of really bad jokes about death by chocolate, rogue oompa-loompas, etc. but I decided it was too soon.

The Arte of the Tantrum

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Oh, the tantrums we’ve been witnessing lately. Full blown, purple, mottled face, choking on the anger type tantrums. There are a lot of things about parenting that make you think about your own parents and what they went through, but with the tantrums lately I’ve really been thinking, “I did that to my parents?” It’s pretty brutal.

So I asked Evie if she had any advice for the other toddlers out there who read my blog and she came up with a couple of hard and fast rules for tantruming:

  1. The Tantrum Shall Be Out of Proportion – It is a must to pick something really small and trivial to go off over, such as not getting the correct flavor yogurt, or daddy getting you the stuffed animal you want instead of mommy.
  2. The Tantrum Shall Be Capricious – To keep them guessing, make sure you have tantrums arbitrarily; something that is okay one day should set you off the next. Pick something that seems innocuous, like “that is a nice dress.” That is what I chose to go off on this morning. This is important because you don’t want to become predictable.
  3. The Tantrum Shall Be Sustainable – Make sure you keep that puppy going for as long as possible. This usually means switching from one topic to the next as they come up. For example, you might want to start off complaining about the color of your spoon, but when someone tries to get you a new spoon, this is an opportunity to switch over to tantruming about which person got the spoon for you. Using this technique, you can keep a tantrum going for over an hour, easily.
  4. The Tantrum Shall Be Total War – Make sure to hit them where it hurts. Total war is not all kicking and biting; sometimes you should go for the psychological warfare. One good technique is to offer to do things they have wanted you to do in the past, such as getting dressed or going to the potty. These will really hurt because you know these items are important to them. Of course if they do try to take you up on your offer you don’t actually have to do it. This can actually play nicely into point 3. Also, if possible, make sure other people are around as this will embarrass everyone.
  5. The Tantrum Shall Be Victorious – If you absolutely must end a tantrum, never go out on their terms. Always make sure to get some kind of concession. For example, if you realize that they are going to out-wait you and you are eventually going to have to brush your teeth, at least make sure the brushing takes place at a location of your choosing.

Did you miss me?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Of course you didn’t, because you didn’t know I was gone.

It’s been a long week and a half or so. Evie and Sara were in MI all last week until Thursday when we met for camping. Always when Sara is going to be gone I think to myself, “I am going to have sooo much time to do whatever I want!” and then I end up being busier than I normally am trying to get all the stuff done I’m supposed to get done while they are gone. So I was actually staying up late every night trying to finish everything I needed to do and didn’t get a lot of free time.

I ain’t complain’ though, because Sara had it much worse. Evie has taken it into her head to have some real tantrums, screaming, kicking, the whole nine. I remember a particular phone call in which I could hear Evie in the background yelling gems like, “It is nice to bite mommy!” Most of these tantrums involve the potty in one way or another. She is very willful and doesn’t like being told what to do, therefore, every little thing becomes a battle of wills. I understand this is pretty typical of her age, so once we are through it, we’re hoping it will go dormant again until she is a teenager.

Many of the problems are exacerbated by being on vacation. First off, she doesn’t have her usual routine going on around her. Second off, she is getting less sleep since her sleep schedule is off and her naps are often shortened because of stuff that we’re doing. Third, she is having a really good time and doesn’t want to do the things she needs to do (like sleep). Finally, when we are busy trying to do things she has more power to disrupt our life and she knows it. And she does not use this power for good. All of this lead Sara to proclaim it the “worst week she’s ever had as a parent” and seriously think about canceling the vacation altogether.

All that unpleasantness aside, there have also been some bright spots on the potty training front. She doesn’t really have a lot of accidents and she is starting to stay dry through naps and even through the night sometimes, despite her diaper. One night she even got Sara to take her to the potty in the middle of the night so she could go.

The actual camping went really well. We were going to tent camp, but the prospect of a wet weekend caused us to upgrade to a cabin and I think it was a wise choice. We were basically unaffected by the rain. One of the highlights of the trip was going to a u-pick strawberry and cherry farm and picking our brains out. Each strawberry was better than the last and I probably ate a pound of cherries.  We may have overdone it a little bit on the strawberries; I don’t know how we can eat them all before they go bad. We’re doing what we can though and even as I write this I am eating fresh strawberries!

Evie also had a great time. When we got home she stayed in the car for about 15 minutes hysterically crying for us to get back in the car (right now!) and drive back to the camp site. She has also been asking to do some of the things we did while camping, such as “see the doggies” or “go swimming”.

So that’s about it, back home safe and sound, at least until the next vacation. I don’t have any quotes for you today, although I’m sure she said plenty of hilarious stuff over the long weekend.

Potty Training

/ Shane / 5 Comments

Let me just start by saying WHAT a weekend. I had no idea that potty training was so exhausting!

A lot of parenting books talk about potty training when your child is “ready”. These days a lot of kids don’t potty train until they are 3 or even 4. Obviously every kid is different, but it was very clear that Evie was ready, even though she’s not even 2. We bought a potty ages ago and encouraged her to sit on it whenever she wanted to. She went a few times by coincidence right away, but it had been a long time since she has done anything. Mostly she just sits and has us read books to her. However, she recently went on the potty intentionally, so that was one indicator. She also began telling us when she went or was going poo poo in her diaper so we could change her right away, which was another pretty clear sign. So, we decided not to make any plans for the long weekend and just see how it went.

We approached it the same way we’ve approached every aspect of parenting; like hardcore researchers. Sara read everything she could find on the subject including webpages, discussion groups, books from the library, etc. She can tell you the pros and cons of any potty video, type of potty seat, books about potties as well as the various methods of potty training. After reading extensively, she gives me maybe the top 5 or 6 books and webpages and then I read those. This system works well for us because I think there are all kinds of viewpoints on this stuff, some of them conflicting, and I think you need to have all the information available so that you can pick and choose what makes sense for you and your family. If you just pick one method and stick with it, you never know A) if there is a better system out there and B) if it is going poorly, you have nothing else to try, no plan B.

So, Sara was home with her on Thursday, but the plan was that I would start it on Friday so that we would have one of us (me) that was with her continuously the entire time, Friday through Monday, for consistency’s sake. So we began talking it up to her, saying things like, “On Friday, we won’t be wearing diapers anymore!” and “On Friday you can wear your new Elmo underwear!” etc. However, all the talk must have sunk in because on Thursday evening she demanded to go on the potty. I guess we were right about her being ready, because she had 4 pee pees and 1 poo poo vs. only 1 accident! Most of our success was due to Evie’s instant love of M&Ms which were reward enough to make her do *anything* including pee pee on command. When we went to bed on Thursday we were really riding high! We never expected so much success and we just couldn’t believe how easy everything had gone. 

Never count your chickens before they’re hatched.

On Friday, we began in earnest the plan we had worked out. Evie would wear her “big girl” Elmo underwear all day except for her nap. In addition to lots of praise and excitement, Evie could pick  prize from the prize bucket every time she went on the potty. Concurrently, we would set a timer for 15 minutes. If she was dry when the timer went off, she could have an M&M. If not, no biggie, but she would have to wait another 15 minutes for an M&M. I thought this last piece was especially brilliant because, yes you want her to go in the potty, but you also want to teach her about keeping herself dry and holding it in.

The plan looked great on paper, but it quickly went south. She wouldn’t sit on the potty for anything. You read these different methods for potty training and people say, “Oh I sit her on the potty every 20 minutes until he goes.” Sounds good, but this is not an infant, if she doesn’t want to sit somewhere she ain’t sitting. It’s like trying to hold a weasel in a sweater. And because she wouldn’t sit, the whole reward system we worked out was nullified. I wasn’t going to force her down on the potty with her screaming bloody murder because I didn’t want to give her toilet issues or something. (Side note, do you think there was ever a point in history when it was common for people to yell, “Bloody murder! Bloody murder!” The phrase has to come from somewhere.) The 15 minute timer went okay except that she wanted those M&Ms so bad that she would demand them before the timer was up. When I didn’t give them to her, she would have an absolute tantrum. There was also an incident where the timer went off and when I got the bowl down she snatched two M&Ms and stuffed them in her mouth instead of just one. I made her give one back and that was the fit to end all fits. So, by the time Sara got home we had many screaming fits and about 6 consecutive accidents on the floor, vs. zero pee pees in the potty. I was not only worn out from fighting with her all day (and the fact that she gets up at 5:30 every morning) but also, it takes a surprising amount of energy to shadow her all day long and watch for signs that she has to go. Evie was worn out too. The only part that could be considered a success about the whole day is that none of her accidents were on the carpet!

Now the interesting thing is that, once Sara came home Evie had a couple of successful potty runs. This was quite perplexing, not to mention deeply depressing in terms of my parenting skills! We’ve rehashed the disastrous Friday a couple of times and we have a number of theories. First off, there are a lot of things she will do for Sara that she just won’t do for me. She is a definite mama’s girl. Second off, it could be that Friday was just an adjustment period and it had to happen like that no matter who was home with her; it just happened to be me. Third, many of the things we tried that day we ended up ditching going forward, such as the timer and M&Ms. It just seemed to cause trouble and not really gain us much. So it could be that the techniques we tried on Friday didn’t work well for her. In other words, it was a learning day for us as much as for her. Or Fourth, maybe I just wasn’t very good at it. Who knows.

Not that it mattered very much, because on Saturday we turned it all around. I’d say she went in the potty about 30 times vs. about 3 accidents (really only 1 that went on the floor). Maybe it was because Sara was there, maybe it wasn’t, but I was just so happy that it didn’t turn out like Friday that I didn’t care! It was a huge rousing success, even if she was going the teeny tiniest amounts about every 45 minutes.

Like I said, we dropped the timer and M&Ms and we focused more on, “What is your body telling you?” We still had to follow her around and watch her like a hawk and throw in a couple of, “are you still dry?”‘s now and again. Also, we sort of let her take the lead on what kind of reward she wanted the next time she went. Sometimes it was an M&M, sometimes it was a sticker, sometimes it was to water the plants. Whatever works! It seemed more motivating to her when she got to pick.

Sunday went even better. We still had a lot of success, but she was going every couple of hours instead of every 45 minutes. We even made a couple of ventures out of the house, to the garden and the close park, and she was okay. Sara wanted to try her nap without a diaper, but that didn’t go so well, so we’ll stick with the diaper for her nap for a while. I think she went something like 26 hours in between accidents.

Today we ventured even further out of the house. She had an accident at the garden, but she went 3 times on the regular potty at the museum! We were pretty worried about that, but it actually worked out okay. She was really excited about it and is looking forward to more potties to try.

::Whew:: This is a long post, but believe me, the actual experience seemed longer still. I have to say though, it went relatively smoothly and it could have been a lot, lot worse. I’m knocking on wood, but I think at this point we have this one in the bag!