Being Sara

Xander with Zach's empty coffee cup

Xander recently discovered the joy of grapes.  We have of course offered grapes to Xander on countless occasions in the past, but he always turned his nose up at them, presumably because he didn’t like the skin.  Sometime last week though, he got over his grape skin aversion, and it’s now his new favorite food.  We’ve got a leftover bucket (from a package of gumi bears) that has been dubbed his grape bucket.  We throw a handful of grapes in there, and he carries the bucket around the house chowing down on his snack.

I think it’s great that he’s enjoying healthy snacks, but it sometimes backfires on us - especially during the week.  If I give him a grape snack when we get home from work/day care, he eats very little if any dinner.  On the other hand, depending on what we’re having for dinner, he sometimes will only eat the noodles or rice and completely forego the meat and vegetable.  Then I wonder if I should have given him some grapes, which would have at least been a little healtheir than noodles for dinner…  Ah, the challenges of making sure your kid eats healthy…

This was a gerat way to remind us that even if Xander tells us he doesn’t like a particular food, that opinion is likely to change in a month or two, so we shouldn’t completely abandon it.  Since our preferences are more solidified, it’s easy to forget this point, so I’m glad Xander reminded us!

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Xander playing with playdough

I think once kids start talking every parent has stories about the cute or silly or sometimes shocking things their kids say.  I can remember laughing until I had tears rolling down my face with some of the things that my nieces and nephew came out with when they were toddlers.  Of course, I would be hard pressed to reacall any of those stories these days.  I suspect that some people find the cute stories about their friends or co-workers kids to be tedious.  On the other hand, that’s pretty much all this blog is, so I’m assuming anyone coming here doesn’t mind hearing about my kid’s cute or funny stories.

A few weeks ago Zach, Xander and I went to visit some friends in the next town over.  As we got in the car, I asked Zach if we should bring some extra juice for Xander.  We were going for dinner and to visit so it would be several hours before we returned.  Zach thought that there would be plenty of juice at the house.  But, Xander would be the only child there, and I worried that the juice available might be cranberry or something else that might not suit Xander’s palate.  Zach responded that Xander wasn’t even 2 - he liked pretty much everything we’ve presented to him so far - he doesn’t have a palate.

Then a little voice piped up from the back seat, “I have a palate!”  Zach and I looked at each other, speechless for a moment before we burst into laughter.  We stand corrected, apparently our son does have a palate…

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Lately Xander has turned into a very fresh little toddler.  One of his favorite sentences is “I need it” or “I need it now”.  Not to mention the directives “Sit Mom”, “Eat Dad”, “Mom, drink”, etc.  My least favorite is “Stop Mom” and he covers my mouth with his hand when he wants me to stop talking.  Unfortunately, this usually catches me off guard, so I’m rendered speechless for a few seconds, which of course means he’s achieved his goal.

I keep explaining how these are not nice, and hurt people’s feelings, make sad faces, etc.  But it doesn’t seem to change the behavior.  I don’t think Xander is doing these things to intentionally be rude.  Usually if he tells us to eat, it’s because he’s eating, and he wants to be doing what we’re doing.  When he tells us to sit, it’s because he wants us to sit on the floor and play with him.  The “Stop Dad (or Mom)” one is the most rude, and we’re working on stopping that behavior before it gets out of hand, but I’m just surprised at how quickly he learned these phrases and their effects.

That being said, he is still a very sweet little kid - always making sure to share with us, whether it’s potato chips or a soggy piece of grilled cheese from his plate.  He’s not generally naughty, and usually listens when we ask him not to do things (though he definitely does test his boundaries on a regular basis).  Ocassionally he’ll use an unprompted “please” or “thank you” and he’ll always say it when prompted.  Just the other day he gave Zach an unprompted hug and “I love you” which I think might have been the sweetest thing in the world ;-)  I’m just not sure how to teach this little guy about manners…  Anyone have any suggestions?

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I think every kid develops their own set of entertaining and interesting quirks. Xander seems to come up with new ones every few weeks. One of his more recent and rather entertaining quirks is his fascination with trees. Sure, most kids probably find trees interesting at various points of development, that’s not out of the ordinary. Xander’s quirky little personality has decided that it is necessary to pet every tree and say “nice tree”. I’d like to be clear - we live in New Hampshire. We do not live in a city. There are plenty of trees in our back yard, there are trees surrounding our parks. There are trees at day care, and pretty much every spot that Xander inhabits has a backdrop of trees. So trees are not a new phenomena in Xander’s life. However, petting each tree, and telling it that it’s a “nice tree” is new.

I think he discovered this most recent trick when our friend’s daughter (about 9 months younger) was examining a pine tree during a recent visit. Someone said, that’s a nice tree, isn’t it? And suddenly, Xander discovered the joys of petting bark.

This becomes particularly entertaining when there is a row of trees, say in a parking lot, and Xander must pet each and every one. Of course, the entertainment value wears off quickly when suddenly you’re running late and arguing with a 2 year old why you simply don’t have time to pet each tree three times today, but maybe tomorrow we can come back and pet them again… Somehow that “tomorrow” reasoning just isn’t good enough yet

Anyway, this is one of those quirks that I expect he’ll outgrow relatively quickly, and someday I may want to look back here and be able to tease him about his desire to pet trees.

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I stumbled across an interesting blog post a few days ago, and it’s been on my mind ever since. So, first, please check out the post here, and then you’ll be able to follow along with my thoughts (don’t worry - it’ll open in a new window).

So, to sum up what Jesse was saying, essentially, we are being too soft on our kids, and teaching them to blame others for their problems. Some of the points that Jesse makes are good ones. I always felt that the movement to use purple pens for correction instead of red was insane. I don’t think it helps kids to make them feel less stressed about red pen markings. Same goes for everyone getting a trophy in little league, or no one having to sit down during a spelling bee.

However, I think that it’s easy to go too far with this as well. I think there must be a happy medium. Jesse talks about raising their 4 month old daughter. He makes reference to her almost being able to roll over, and someday trying to walk. These are things that I can easily relate to. I thought back to our experiences with Xander rolling over. It took him a long time to get this figured out. We could have left him screaming on his stomach for longer I’m sure. On the other hand, when he was flipping out, he wasn’t being productive. It wasn’t like he was trying to move himself, he was just crying, red-faced and miserable, so we didn’t leave him like that for lengthy periods of time. The same when Xander learned to walk. We held his hand when he asked, and let him attempt on his own when he didn’t.

Now, Xander is very clear with us when he wants to do things on his own. Two examples that come to mind immediately are the stairs, and food. Xander rarely wants help going up or down the stairs these days. We still play spotter when he’s walking down, but we let him go on his own for the most part. Xander also will refuse to eat if he can’t hold his own utensil. He doesn’t want to be spoon fed, and he doesn’t want help getting his food from the plate to his mouth. Regardless of how much he spills, he wants to do it on his own, and we let him as much as possible.

According to Jesse’s theory, Zach and I are raising a member of the “Y-Me?” generation. We help him when he asks for it, and sometimes when he doesn’t. On the other hand, we have an extremely self confident child. He adapts easily to change, isn’t afraid to try things on his own, and is confident that if he goes running around on the playground, Mom or Dad will be around somewhere to catch him if he slips.

We haven’t reached an age where we can start teaching things like fiscal responsibility, or familial responsibility in terms of chores, etc. Before I was a parent, I probably would have had some strong opinions about what we would and wouldn’t do in terms of these decisions. Now, I’m taking a “wait and see” attitude. I can’t tell you that we will definitely require Xander to do chores around the house or that we’ll give him an allowance or not. I just don’t know right now. I do know that when we need to make the decisions, we’ll make them based on what is best for Xander - what will help him to learn and develop in a manner that we are comfortable with.

I don’t think that anyone wants a child to grow up blaming the rest of the world for his or her difficulties, but I also don’t think that raising a 2 year old to understand that life is hard and you’re just going to have to get used to it is the only way to get there. I read through some of the comments on Jesse’s site, and everyone seemed to think that his ideas were right on the money, and this was definitely the way to go. It makes me wonder how many of those commenters actually have kids… Anyway, it was an interesting article and definitely thought provoking.

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