Being Sara

Man, that's some cold mud!

My kids love their day care.  I can tell by the way they act when I drop them off, the way they act when I pick them up and the stories they (and their teachers) tell me about their antics during the day.

Yesterday Xander’s class had a “boat race”.  With some leftover Styrofoam they spent the previous day crafting and painting sail boats.  On Thursday their teacher filled a radio flyer wagon with water on the play ground and the “raced” the boats from one end to another.  Two at a time, using only their breath to push the sails.  How cute is that?

Of course, 3 and 4 year olds can’t be satisfied with just water when there is the potential to make mud so it wasn’t long before handfuls of sand landed in the wagon and the boat race quickly deteriorated to mud pies.  The kids in the class all did a pretty good job of keeping the mud in the wagon and not on themselves.  Parker though?  Parker wasn’t satisfied with just rolling mud in his hands.  Oh no.  He managed to climb IN TO the wagon to SIT in the mud.  Yep, that’s my son…

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I’ve considered posting something up here several times this week, but every time I thought about it, I thought, “eh, that’s not very interesting”.  Sure, Xander asking us if it was Christmas again this morning because we have an inch of snow on the ground was sort of funny (though an excellent reminder that we can’t tell him it’ll be Christmas time again when it snows until after we’re sure it’s done snowing for the season).

And boy was it frustrating when the boys had an argument yesterday and Parker bit Xander for the first time ever.  I’m totally in love with my new iPad (yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all the negative press – it’s a bigger iTouch, it does everything a laptop does but worse, and isn’t as good as an iPhone because it can’t make calls, etc.  Whatever.  It does everything I want a computer to do, and I haven’t owned a new computer since 1999, so I’m happy).

We’re adjusting to life on the side of a mountain.  Things seem to go like this:

Me: I’ve never had a well before, do you think we’ll have to worry about it drying up in the summer time?

Zach: No, we have an artesian well – we won’t have to worry about it drying up.  Sheesh, don’t you know anything about wells?

Me: Nope, this is my very first well experience.  I am a city (well, town really) girl.

Less than 24 hours later, our well pump dies and it takes $2,000.00 to replace it.  *awesome*

Some animal has discovered our trash bins.  It (or they, I’m envisioning a pack of raccoons) were kind enough to spread garbage allll over our back yard (the nice smelly kind – since we’re out in the woods, there is no more garbage disposal which means lots more food (mostly from the kids) dumped in there to make stuff extra pungent).  It happened to be a rather windy evening, so one stray plastic bag managed to get caught at the top of a 30 foot tree.  Oh man that irritated the bejesus out of Zach.  It’s finally disappeared over a week later.

Last week a friend of ours (with kids pretty much the exact same ages as ours) and I took all four kids to Chuck E. Cheese.  It’s was day care’s “staff sanity day” so we decided to go all out and make it “parent insanity day”.  It was actually pretty fun, and other than NONE of the kids napping for over an hour on the way home, a good time was had by all.  So, the most exciting thing I’ve seen in a week is this – enjoy:

Boys riding the Carousel at Chuck E. Cheese

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Parker has always been our rough and tumble kid.  He loves to wrestle.  He loves to be tossed about.  He loves anything that involves physical play.  In our house, most of the time, this is ok.  We separate the boys when Parker gets too physical.  I put him down when he tries to hit me.  We constantly remind him to be gentle, and show him gentle touches.  But the kid just loves rough play.  Last week at day care he chased another child.  He pushed the child down (the kid’s head bumped a table) and then Parker when in for a bite.  The teacher pulled Parker off of the other kid and reprimanded him.  He, in his typical Parker fashion, melted and collapsed on the floor in tears.  After the reprimand came the comforting and eventually they went back to playing normally.

After this, I asked the teacher what I should do.  Her response was vague – he didn’t actually bite, so they didn’t have a “no biting” discussion.  He’s not even 18 months yet, so lengthy discussions don’t work.  I let her know I was open to any suggestions, that we were trying everything we could think of and would try anything anyone else could think of.

I asked my mother-in-law and sister-in-law what they thought.  They have over 50 years of parenting experience combined, so I thought between all of the kids and grandkids maybe they would have come across this sort of situation before.  My mother-in-law talked about a friend of the family who used to bite her older brother when she was little.  Eventually the mother encouraged the boy to bite her back.  He did, and the biting stopped.  I thought that biting back wasn’t an approved solution, but I could be wrong.  This wasn’t exactly biting back either, since it was the brother who bit, not a parent…

I asked our pediatrician.  He said this behavior is normal, and that we should just keep doing what we’re doing.

Then last night Parker bit me.  Hard.  Hard enough to draw blood.  We were playing on the floor after dinner.  He was getting pretty rough, so I wrapped him in my arms and told him that hands were for hugs, not hitting.  While I hugged him, he bit me.  After I had pulled him off, and recovered from the surprise, I tried to explain to Parker that he hurt Mommy.  That we don’t bite, etc. but he was too riled up to listen to any words coming out of my mouth.

So, anyone who happens to stumble across this blog: How do you teach a 15-month-old not to bite?  Furthermore, how do you teach this particular 15-month-old boy to please, please be a little more gentle?

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Each child has their own specific set of joys and challenges.  I guess that’s what keeps us on our toes.  With Xander, I sometimes worry that he is too sensitive, that he doesn’t stick up for himself and therefore it’s easier for him and his feelings to get trampled on.  I was just getting used to this – to responding to Xander and encouraging him to be assertive where appropriate.

With Parker, it’s the exact opposite.  Case in point: yesterday I arrived at day care to pick up the boys.  I stopped to check in with Parker’s teacher, and while I was there, another little boy’s mother arrived.  Parker was already in his coat and ready to go, but toddling around happily while I talked.  When this mother help up her son’s coat to get him ready, he immediately laid face-down on the ground and began to cry.  She and the teacher began discussing this new behavior of his while a little girl in the class helped the boy up off the floor.  He continued to cry, but was standing.  Parker toddled over with his arms out.  I almost picked him up as he walked by, but he had his arms out like maybe he was going to hug this other little boy, so I let him go.  What did he do you ask? He walked right up to this crying little boy with a big smile on his face and pushed him in the chest.  I was mortified.  I of course swooped Parker away and said “oh Parker, we don’t push, we hug” while demonstrating a hug.  Parker may or may not have understood the lesson (I repeated it a few times) but it’s been sinking in with me for months.  Our boy is rough and tumble through and through.  He loves to push, pull, tug and hit.  It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we remind him to be gentle or how many times we show him how to touch people gently.  His first reaction is to hit.  His behavior means that he is the child who is put into a pack ‘n play or a jump-a-roo to give the other kids in the room a break from him.  Parker really believes that he is just playing, that his actions are all in fun, but of course they aren’t interpreted that way.  We won’t give up, but this new kid with this new behavior is certainly proving to be a challenge for us!

How about the rest of you – do you have a hitter or a biter, and have you found any effective strategies in teaching them other methods of “playing”?

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Last month I helped to chaperon Xander’s day care class at a local apple orchard.  It was something I had been looking forward to for years – some of my fondest childhood memories include my mother coming on fields trips like apple picking with me.  So I was “assigned” 2 boys along with my son to keep track of during the day.  One of the boys is generally pleasant and helpful and listens pretty well.  The other one, not so much…  So, we all hopped into my car (I should note that the “challenging child” also came with a booster seat that I personally feel is entirely inadequate for his little frame) and off we went.

We were about 15 minutes into the trip when I got a reality slap in the face.  The boys (the challenging one started it of course) began a lengthy game of one-upping each other.  “I peed on the floor!”  “I pooped on the seat!”  “I pooped on your head!”  “I pooped on your nose!” and on, and on, and on this went.   Attempts to redirect them fell on deaf ears.  Even after two of the boys tired of the game, the challenging kid kept bringing the conversation back to bodily functions.  It was then, driving down the highway on a sunny September morning, that I realized that I have two sons and this sort of talk is going to continue for years, and years, and years.  I visibly shuddered at the realization.  And then quickly asked my charges “hey, who likes to pick apples?” and then after they tired of that, “hey! Look at that tractor!”  Finally an hour later we arrived at our destination.

I’m pretty sure that herding kittens is easier than herding 3-4 year olds.  Luckily, there were many adults around, so I managed to get some assistance in convincing my challenging child that he could not stay on the play ground, but needed to walk with us to the apple trees.  It helped having a nice big wagon that fit 2 boys.

The picking itself didn’t last very long – maybe 1/2 an hour, but the kids had fun.  We watch some farm animals, picked some apples and spent some time on their playground.  It was a nice day.  This particular apple orchard has a wooden sign with a scarecrow and a flower on it.  The top says “How Tall In The Fall?”  The idea is that you can take a picture of your child in front of the sign and compare from year to year.  Well, last year we took a picture of Xander in front of the sign.  This year I did the same thing.  Unfortunately, last year they had placed a wooden box at the base of the sign, which raised Xander up 6 inches or so.  So if you compare the pictures, he actually looks taller last year.  Not exactly the comparison I was looking for…

I was mostly spared potty talk on the way home, but I think that’s because the boys were tired (thankfully!)  Overall I think the day went really well.  I had fun, the kids seemed to have fun, and we got apples!  Next we we’re headed to a pumpkin patch.  The farm not only has pumpkins but also hay rides and a corn maze, so it should be a good day!  I wish I could continue to chaperon Xander’s monthly trips, but unfortunately after this one I’ll have to save my vacation time for the Christmas break…

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