I am Running Out of Creative Titles for my Blog Posts, Especially When I Start the Post with a Rambling Update & End Up On my Soapbox about Something

(Well, if THAT grabber doesn't make you want to read on, I don't know what will...)

Not that any of you have been sitting around with nothing to do but check our blog from day to day, but I know it's been awhile since we've posted. I admit that I found myself getting frustrated the other day as I ran down my list of friends' blogs and not one, single blog had a new entry. I thought, Come on, people!—until I realized that I had not posted anything that new or terribly interesting in quite a long time, so who am I to complain?

This month has just flown by for us. We haven’t been particularly busy, but just the steady routines of everyday life has kept us on the go, I guess. It’s finally been getting colder here, which is a welcome feeling after such a long heat wave. But now we’re dragging out myriad coats and hats and mittens…and I’ve got to find a more organized place for it all than my dining room table. I’ve also realized that I have no winter coat for Ellie, and no snow pants for Jack, so I’ve been searching all over Ebay for reasonably priced, used options. For now we’re layering Ellie in sweaters and fleeces, and well, there isn’t any snow in the forecast for the coming week so I think we’re okay on the snow pants for now.

I can’t believe how annoying it is that the kids need new clothes all the time! It drives me crazy thinking of the box of Jack’s winter clothes from last year in storage that he can’t wear this year. And Ellie is growing at such a fast rate now that I’m constantly, it seems, discovering shirts, pants, shoes, socks, onsies, etc. that she’s outgrown. Plus with the changing seasons, she can’t really wear her little summery outfits anymore, but most of her wintery stuff is twelve months and she’s already starting to outgrow that. Hard to plan ahead…but also kills me to spend money on clothes that we won’t be able to reuse next year. I’m so thankful for the children’s clothing resales that I’ve found in our area, for used clothes I’ve found on Ebay, and of course the Target clearance rack!

Jack is already wearing some 3T shirts, but still mostly in 2T pants. I know all parents go through this, but I just cannot believe he’s already inching up on the number “3”. He has seemed two to me for a long time, even before his second birthday he seemed like a two-year-old. But three? So grown up.

He is hilarious these days. He is very concerned with Ellie obeying and doing things the right way (i.e. the way mommy has told HIM to do it) and will correct her any chance he gets. He is very, very routine about things (are all kids this age or is it just my weird son?) and must have things just so. He always has to have ice in his “wawo” (water). Whenever we come home he takes off his shoes, then his socks, puts one sock in each shoe, then places his shoes on the shelf by the door with all his other shoes. Then he takes off his sweatshirt and hangs it up. If he ever sees a cabinet door open, he makes sure to come shut it. If Ellie happens to be standing there with a confiscated cabinet item in her hand, he will tell her “No, No, Ae-yee,” take the item from her, replace it in the cabinet, and shut the door.

He hates, HATES, when his food is “broken.” Like, if his breakfast fruit bar breaks as he’s eating it, he completely melts down. If I hand him a cracker with a corner broken off he hands it back to me saying, “Yucky.” The other day Eric gave him a chocolate chip cookie and as soon as he took a bite the cookie crumbled into three pieces. You would have thought the world was coming to an end by the way he screamed and cried and kicked and howled. He’s going to have a hard time in life if something this small gets him so worked up!

He vocabulary continues to grow. It is still slow, but we’re going to give him more time before we have him officially checked out. His most recent words are, “peet-za” “watch out!” “oh-kay” “baseball” (clearly articulated!) He even says things like, “shhhhoot ball!” and “hit ball!” He also has started trying to say, "Grandma" for my mom; it comes out more like, "Gama" or "Ah-Ma." But he still often babbles and babbles away without any real intelligible words. He also seems to reverse certain things, like instead of “bat” he says, “dat” and when I work with him on the “b” sound, which he used perfectly in other words, he says, “Buh, at. Buh, at. Dat.” Who knows. I find encouragement knowing he used to call Ellie “Ah-guck” and but now has finally switched over to “Ae-yee” (don’t know how to write that—long "A" sound with “yee” on the end). We’ll see how he progresses as he reaches his third birthday.

A few recent funny things he’s done…when Ellie was first learning to walk, Eric and I would sit facing each other and try to get her to walk back and forth between us. One night she made it back and forth a few times and we excitedly tried to get Jack to watch and cheer for her. He watched once and then came over, stood in front of me, and slowly hobbled his way over to Eric. “What is the big DEAL, guys?” It was SO funny.

One day a friend of mine was over and we were talking and he kept trying to get my attention. I asked him to wait for a moment as I was talking, and after getting impatient he finally came over, stood right in front of my face, and loudly went, “Pssst!” Bad mother that I am I about fell of my chair laughing.

Tonight Eric was late getting home from work, so by the time I heard the garage door opening the kids had eaten dinner and were in the process of being stripped to their nothins’ for a bath. Jack was SO excited that Daddy was home that he ran, naked, to the door. Ellie squirmed out of her diaper and jumped up to join him…two little naked bottoms running from me were funny enough. But then when I opened the door, Eric wasn’t there and so Jack ran out our door…I told him it was cold, but he either didn’t hear me or didn’t believe me because he just kept running…I mean seriously—it’s in the 40’s! All of a sudden I heard Eric howling with laughter as a naked and now extremely cold Jack had come running out to his car for what proved to be a much different welcome than anticipated. And as they entered the garage Ellie came running toward them in her almost-one-year-old birthday-suit glory. It took us awhile to calm down from the hilarity of it all.

One thing that has me puzzled these days about Jack is that there appear to be certain things that we have taught him well, and other things that he is having a hard time, er, learning. For example, he cannot help himself—no matter how thirsty or hungry he is, he ALWAYS says thank you when we hand him his water cup, milk cup, or some kind of meal or snack. And we have trained him to return his milk cup (a particular sippy cup that we designated as his milk cup) either to us or directly to the kitchen counter—we were tired of having to search for it by its day-old milk odor as he would leave it all over the house. He doesn’t run into the street anymore to chase his balls, and if he throws a ball out there on purpose he runs to his time out spot without even being asked. Just yesterday he got into his crayons without asking me and I explained that he needed to ask mommy before he opened them up (as I need to be on the lookout for crayon art on places other than paper…). Today he sweetly pointed to them on the table and said, “Mama, please?” So many nice things we’ve taught him. And as he is learning do’s and don’ts, he loves to enforce them with Ellie. He knows the things we’ve told her not to do, like touch the oven or pull all the books off the shelf. When he witness her disobeying he will either say to me or her, “Oh, no, Ae-yee! No, no!” and sometimes I’ve heard, “Ae-yee, ahbey (obey)!!!”

And yet, the whole, “You cannot, under any circumstances, treat your baby sister like an opposing player on a football team” thing hasn’t gotten through to him yet. It’s been one of our worst, ongoing discipline problems this past month. I think I wrote awhile back about how he likes to tip her over; that has grown into full-fledged tackling, shoulder first. He runs at top speed down the hallway and just barrels into her. Now, I know, I know, those of you with brothers or sons are probably rolling your eyes and thinking, “Just wait...” And I’m okay with a little rough housing. I admit it has taken me time to get used to it, as I did not have brothers and so didn’t grow up with that much roughness. So I expect Ellie to have to learn to get used to some of that and to figure out how to stand on her own. And I don’t want to take that away from Jack, that wildness and need for physical exertion.

We do, however, want our household to be a safe place, and one where everyone is respected. We want our children to not fear one another, and we don’t want one to think he (or she!) can dominate or abuse the others unfairly with no consequences. Just a small aside…I absolutely, positively cannot stand that kids’ t-shirt that says, “Sisters have feelings too. But who really cares?” I think it is awful for anyone—especially adults—to be encouraging this kind of attitude between a brother and sister. While Jack may not always understand his sister or her feelings, I want him to at least CARE. I want him to learn to respect his sister and see her value in our family. I want him to grow up knowing what a special role he has as a big brother—and I believe we have to start teaching him these things now. All of this to say…Ellie has started to flinch and cry whenever Jack simply walks by and that concerns us. Not to mention the fact that he has hit her pretty hard a few times and knocked her into corners on walls, dressers, the oven, ect—things that are more serious physical hazards. We don’t think, so far, that his behavior is out of anger or a reaction to anything, but is rather simply toddler-boyhood roughness. He loves, loves, loves wrestling with Daddy, he loves being pushed around when we’re playing and he loves to fall over and feign boo-boos. So when he’s going after Ellie it’s always with a glint in his eye and is usually followed with gleeful laughter.

Eric and I have had many discussions about where to draw the line. If we are going to say to him, “Don’t push Ellie” and we expect him to obey us, then we have to have consequences when he disobeys. But when is he “disobeying” and when are they just having fun? Because sometimes, when she’s into it, they are both laughing and she lets our peels of laughter when he knocks her over or bumps in to her. We’ve tried to distinguish between those times and the times when she’s simply standing holding a toy and without any warning she is slammed to the ground or into the table leg. We discipline him for the latter…but as I’ve cried to Eric a number of times, the latter happens almost all day! I get to the end of the day and feel like I’m way too familiar with his backside.

It also seems like his behavior goes in cycles. For a few weeks he is SO good, hardly any resistance and quick obedience. He is polite, sweet, thoughtful (as much as a toddler can be), and is generally a joy to be around. Then the weeks come when it seems he pushes ALL the buttons, stretches me to ALL my limits, and seems to receive nothing but discipline. I recently read in a book about parenting a similar story from the author about their children’s behavior cycles. But I thought their realization was very insightful—they discovered that they, the parents, had created these cycles. As their children began to behave better, they offered more and more grace and less and less discipline, until things were out of control again and then they would tighten up their consistent discipline until the children were behaving obediently and respectfully again. But then they would back off once more and not be as strict, and the cycles would continue and continue. Eric and I have talked about this, too, lately, and decided to monitor our own discipline to see if we are adding to this back and forth of behavior.

Wow. I did not sit down with the intention to go into a discussion on discipline. It’s actually been very interesting, though, as we have recently been reading certain books about godly parenting—I have been challenged as well as encouraged and strengthened in my approach to raising my kids. Eric and I are currently reading a book together, and while it is sometimes exhausting to talk over so often, it is nice to be in this together and to feel like we are both pouring so much of ourselves into it. I would sure hate to be in disagreement about how to raise our children; I cannot imagine being married to someone who did not share my convictions or values about all this! I know that there are many, many different theories and approaches out there about all this, and I am so thankful to have found wise men and women who have gone before me in this path, who have studied children for years, who have raised their own children, who have sought wisdom in God’s Word and now point me there as well. Men and women who challenge and compel us to obey God in our parenting journey, to take our job as parents seriously, and to have high expectations for our children. As I’ve read I have been humbled and had my opinions challenged, I have had to admit I was wrong about certain things, and I’ve also had some of my strongest convictions articulately and beautiful laid out, encouraging me and strengthening me. And the best part? I am learning SO MUCH about being a precious child of God. (Let me know if you are in the market for good reading material—we have a couple good books to recommend!) I’ve also realized I have more to say on this issue so I might offer up a few posts in the future on this topic.

For now, it’s time for bed. We were up with Ellie a few nights ago (food poisoning from fishy crackers, we think) and we are still recovering. We’ve also been up too late watching post-season baseball this month so we’re (I’m) looking forward to the end of that. A couple of things for YOU to look forward to from us: a sampling of pictures from Jack’s second birthday, Ellie’s baptism, Colorado, and Halloween 2007. Thanks for catching up with us!