How to Encourage Independence and still get out of the house on time

Jennifer:
Gianna is currently in the stage where she wants to do EVERYTHING by herself. Like most kids, she doesn’t move the quickest sometimes. In order to encourage her to keep moving, we give her choices like, “Do you want to put on your pink shoes or your white shoes? Do you want to go to the bathroom first or brush your teeth first?” Giving her the ability to make those decisions help her to keep moving and get the task done. She now knows that if she doesn’t make the choice, we will do it for her and she doesn’t like that very much. It takes a lot of encouragement and praise, but the more we offer her choices, the more apt she is to take responsibility.

Amy:
Independence is something we have no shortage of around our house these days. As was true with our oldest son, the mandated “me do” did not start until well into the 2′s ~ long enough to think we just might sneak through without it. I know, naive thinking! Jake loves his independence in picking out his clothes, some of the foods he eats and his refusal of doing things he deems unlikable. We find it easier to manage the times we have to do for him with allowing freedom in other areas. It has forced me to live with cartoon character clothing but it has been a small price to pay for the trade off in other areas. Jake loves to go places. When we announce it is time to leave we usually do so about 5 minutes before we are walking out the door to allow everyone a little transition time. Jake will be standing on the front porch shoes and coat on while we as parents try to get him back in the house while his brother is slow to get going. However once we get to the car, he wants to pick the door he goes in, who will buckle his car seat, who can sit next to him and what door he will exit – all at a much slower pace than I prefer. Then I watch him carefully lock his door the second he gets in or out of the car and it takes away the anxiety that the few extra seconds is costing me. It also allows me a few bonus points when I really have to pick a battle and win it ~ like eating cookies for breakfast…

More on What’s for Dinner

Terri:
We have fraternal twins and interestingly our daughter is very willing to try a new food while our son is the exact opposite. We usually just present a new food to her making a big deal how yummy it is and she will try it. She is very interested in whatever we are eating (we usually eat after them) and she will often try new things off our plates. Our son, will immediately say “no” to anything you present to him – sometimes later (on his own terms) he will give something a try. Both of their favorite food is link sausage. It never fails – if we cannot get them to eat anything else – they will eat “sasag” as they call it. Not the healthiest food, but as many with two year olds know – sometimes you are just happy that they are eating, period. They also both love all kinds of fresh fruit including bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries, oranges, and pears. Unfortunately, neither one likes milk or yogurt, so we give them calcium supplements. Like most two year olds – ours are always on the go and are not interested in sitting very long to eat. We usually have fruit and other snacks or food left from mealtime on their little table so they can eat as they want through the day.

What’s For Dinner?

Amy:
Jake’s favorite food is chicken and rarely wants to eat anything else. I find he is even pickier than his brother was at this age. We have ourselves to blame for this one, as I am not a good cook and really don’t enjoy it so we tend to go with really standard repetitive meals. When we try something new then that is just what is for dinner. My 2-year-old is stronger than me and has gone to bed without dinner on more than one occasion when he refuses to eat what is for dinner. Breakfast the next day is always a big hit then! As far as things he cannot stand to eat, there are plenty. If it is not related to spaghetti, some kind of plain chicken, grilled cheese or peanut butter he will insist that he does not like it (or in his words, “I no yike it”). He will drink milk, eat yogurt, apples, carrots and a few select “healthy” things so I am comfortable he is getting the nutrients he needs just not a wide variety of it.

Jennifer:
Our rule with Gianna is she must try every food at least once. If she doesn’t like it, then she can choose not to eat more. She is also learning that what we’re eating for that meal is what we’re eating. There are no substitutes. It’s definitely challenging sometimes, but as long as we’re consistent, she’s learning our expectations.

Her favorite food is chicken. She loves it cooked in many different ways. A food she really dislikes is avocados.

Moving on to the “Drama Filled Three’s”

Teresa:
Well, we made it through the two’s as Delaney turned three at the beginning of January and I have to say it wasn’t all that terrible! Unfortunately, I think we’re heading right in to the very drama filled threes. I hardly ever heard the word “no” out of her mouth and often used her willingness to complete tasks against my six year old son who often says no when I ask him to do things like pick up his room or take the trash out. Lately things haven’t been so easy with Laney and I think I may have discovered the reason. I learned from my daycare provider, who is also a great friend that Laney’s been showing up to daycare every morning with Hershey’s Kisses. It seems my husband has taken to bribing her to get her to cooperate in the mornings…thanks daddy!! Oh well, what can I say, she’s her mother’s daughter and inherited my chocolate addiction gene!

As for Laney’s favorite toy, it’s all about fairies, ponies, and princesses right now. She got a fairy dress up trunk for Christmas and dresses up almost every night to flit around the house. She’s even come up with this cute little wiggly dance that is now tagged “The Fairy Dance” that she does in or out of costume and on command. She and Brenden started doing their own little skits the other night after watching a couple youngsters doing skits on America’s Funniest Home Videos and it was so cute. Laney would put on different costumes and Brenden would sit on the couch narrating a story as Laney acted it out. It never fails to amaze me how fast both kids learn and grow.

It also looks like, with the change in age, Laney’s pretty close to outgrowing her afternoon nap, which I am going to miss dearly. She is good at quiet time though, so she’s taken to lying in bed with her favorite book or singing to herself. I can always tell she’s waking up in a good mood when I hear her singing, “I love you, you love me” (otherwise known as the Barney song) at the top of her lungs to let me know she’s up.  I’m very sad she’s grown up so quickly, but so looking forward to new things like ballet and pre-school.  Thank you to all of you who have followed Laney and I through our journey together through the terrific twos!

More About Favorite Toys

Terri:

We are the proud parents of fraternal twins (a boy and a girl) – 27 months. Their favorite toy is usually the one that the other one has at the moment. For our kids, at this age, they actually have new favorites fairly often. Lately, their absolute favorite is the foam squares that fit together to form a mat. The squares have cut out numbers and are all different colors. They love to jump from square to square and we take the opportunity to practice on their recognition of colors and counting. This is a great indoor activity to run and jump when it is too cold to go outside (they are really missing being outside all the time). They also love their magnadoodle board. One draws while the other one erases the masterpiece as fast as they can. They have just recently shown much more interest in actually sitting and playing with toys like Lego blocks and coloring (well scribbling) – showing that their patience level is increasing and of course they love it they can “talk” mom or dad into playing too.

My Child’s Favorite Toy

Now that the holidays are over and the decorations are put away, our bloggers weigh in our their child’s favorite toy.

Jennifer:
Gianna’s favorite toy is her play kitchen. She received it for Christmas last year and it is the one toy that gets the most use. She loves helping cook in our kitchen, so she often pretends to make things on her own. It allows her to use her imagination and she acts out what she learns when helping mom and dad in the kitchen. She makes all kinds of concoctions for us with her plastic food and dishes.

Amy:
Any type of a ball. Bouncing balls, footballs, soccer balls- you name it he is attracted to it and cannot seem to differentiate between inside toys and out so we have had a few mishaps. He definitely has a great arm and leg so we can only hope one of these days it pays off. We got him the Gator Golf set for Christmas and he loves that as well but around his brother the clubs turn into weapons ~ amazing how naturally that happens with boys.

Teaching Lessons in Giving

Jennifer:
Gianna and her Grandma and I made cookies last weekend and Gianna was so proud to be able to give them out to family and friends. We are also planning to donate items to the tree of sharing, so Gianna will help us pick out the items for the children and will come with us to drop them off. We also will be making little craft items like magnets and picture frames to give to family members. It is so fun to see her excitement and pride as she is involved in the process.

Thanksgiving: The Joys of Celebrating with Extended FAmily

Jennifer:
For Thanksgiving, we travel to the town where both my family and my spouse’s family are, so we get a chance to see everyone. It’s always a lot of traveling back and forth from house to house, but it is nice to be a part of the big family again. Gianna has a cousin that is the same age as her, so she’s already looking forward to the visit. She also gets tons of attention and gifts from everyone, so of course she enjoys it.

We have a couple of Thanksgiving books that talk about being thankful for blessings in our life. After reading the books, we have talked about how we will get to spend time with all of the people in our family and it’s a time to be thankful for those people and all of our many blessings.

Amy:
I wish I had some great ideas for Holiday traditions. We have both grandmothers here in Spokane so we trade holidays. This year we will be with the paternal grandmother. For years, their entire family has gathered at a local church for a Thanksgiving potluck. I love this opportunity, as it is a large group of close to 50 people. It is great for the kids to see how important extended family is, interact with great-great aunts that live out of town, see cousins they only see at this event and enjoy a variety of family recipe’s. On the maternal side, we always go around the table to say what we are thankful for. That is the extent of our Thanksgiving traditions.

Teresa: For us, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family, which I’m sure is a common theme. Delaney’s fortunate enough to have 4 great grandparents still alive, 2 of them right here in Spokane, so I think it’s important she gets to see them. At the Thanksgiving table, which rotates to different family members every year, will be our family, my husband’s parents, sister, her husband, two cousins, a great grandmother, and often my family comes from Ellensburg to celebrate as well. It’s a fun time, and made even more fun by the fact there’s now enough little kids to fill the kiddy table. I also have the week off which will give Laney and I some much needed mommy/daughter time. Well Laney may not be quite old enough to understand the meaning of this holiday; I hope I can help her understand through demonstration. I am thankful and blessed to have two healthy children, a great job, and a loving husband to share everything with (our 9th anniversary is the day before Thanksgiving).

Saturday, Laney and I enjoyed Disney on Ice together. The show was wonderful. It was great to see her face light up as she recognized all her favorite Disney characters. Her birthday is fast approaching and I see a Tinkerbelle party in our near future!

Making the Big Move from Crib to Bed

Jennifer:

We just moved Gianna to a big girl bed about three weeks ago. We talked about it often before we made the change. We told her it would be bigger, so she’ll have more room when she sleeps and she’ll have a big cozy blanket and pillow. We also talked about kids we know that have big kid beds. That seemed help her get excited about the transition. Gianna went to the store with us and picked out the sheets and comforter she wanted out of the three choices we gave her.

We removed the crib and installed the new bed when she wasn’t there, because we sensed that she’d be worried about the crib if she saw us taking it apart. She was instantly excited when she saw the big bed in her room and she climbed up and into the covers. Since the change, we haven’t experienced any issues. She actually hasn’t gotten out during the night. If she wakes up during the night, she usually calls for us like she did in her crib. She may soon realize that she has more freedom than she did before, but we’re enjoying this time so far.

Teresa:

With both my kiddos, once they could climb out of the crib on their own, I was concerned about them falling onto the floor from the top of the crib railing. They have both used the same crib. In the interest of saving money, I got a crib that converted to a toddler bed with a short partial railing so that they could climb out and instantly touch the floor and at the same time not worry about them rolling out while they’re sleeping. I haven’t transitioned Laney to a big bed yet because she still fits in her toddled bed and her room is tiny, so I’m not sure how we’d fit a twin bed in there anyway. With Brenden, it was a pretty easy transition from the toddler bed to a twin bed. He got his twin bed and matching dresser from Santa for Christmas. We did go through the period where he’d climb out and sleep on the floor next to the door, but consistent reinforcement of sleeping in his own bed remedied the situation. Fortunately, Delaney stays in bed until she wakes up, but that may change when we first transition her to a twin bed.

Naptime Stories

Teresa:
Delaney does still take naps, and she actually used to be really good about going to bed when you told her it was time. As we are in the heart of the terrible twos, it hasn’t been super bad yet, but she has shown some resistance to nappy time. She starting to pull the typical avoidance tactics by not wanting to go potty, then taking forever once she’s convinced to go potty, then she wants a bunch of her stuffed animals and of course the one color baby (she’s got yellow, pink, blue, and two purple clothed babies) that I can’t find. Then yesterday I got her all tucked in and ready to go only to shut the door and hear immediate crying. This isn’t typical for her. She usually goes right to sleep with no fussing once the door is closed, so I opened the door to see what happened. When I asked her what was wrong, she blubberingly said, “I blow kisses mamma…” Apparently I hadn’t caught them as I shut the door, so I gave her one more kiss and hug and made sure I caught the kisses she blew. This time when I closed the door, all was quiet.

Laney typically takes two-hour naps, but on occasion, when she’s sick or having a growth spurt, they have been up to 4 hours. If she doesn’t get a nap, the evenings can be very tearful and whiny. I try to stay pretty on schedule and make sure she’s down for her nap sometime between 12:30 and 1:30. I think staying consistent has been the best technique to get both kids settled down for nap or bedtime.

Jennifer:
Gianna takes a two to three hour nap a day. We can usually tell it’s time for a nap when it gets to be lunch time. She often rubs her eyes and wants to be held. We usually do lunch around 11:30 and I try to prepare her for naptime by talking about what we’ll do in the afternoon after her nap. After she’s all cleaned up from lunch, we snuggle and read a book and by that time, she’s ready to lie down. She’s been in a crib up until last weekend, so we usually would just hear her talking or singing in her room when she was awake. Now that she’s in a big girl bed, that will all change. As soon as she’s ready to get up, she doesn’t let me forget the activity we previously talked about. The longer Gianna goes without a nap, or if she doesn’t get a nap at all, we notice that the amount of meltdowns increase significantly. She just gets frustrated and all out cranky (just like anyone needing sleep, I suppose). A nap is what she needs to be re-energized for the afternoon.

Amy:
This is a fun topic to tackle only because naptime is so easy now. When Jake was in childcare his naps were very short. Then Don started staying home with the boys and began to take the easy road of planning errands right around naptime. Jake would always fall asleep on the way home and then Don would carry him down to his bed to finish nap. That started making bedtime a nightmare, as Jake needed someone to help him fall asleep. After Don and I visited about the new challenges of bedtime he started putting Jake down awake at naptime. In two days flat Jake was fine and actually now prefers to just be put in his crib – no songs, no stories, no rocking. In fact, when you try to sit and rock him he points at his crib until you put him to bed. He rolls over and you don’t year another peep until he wakes. When we are late for nap, he will often pick up his blankets and say “ni-night”. This works when we are camping, staying in a hotel or at home.
Jake’s average nap is 2-hours. If it is significantly shorter than this, the rest of the day can be full of meltdowns. There have been several occasions where we have skipped naptime all together. Typically this is when we are out and about. When this happens we are busy and he rarely misses a beat. This also lends to a bit earlier bedtime though. This summer I took the boys to Silverwood and Jake was not having anything to do with a nap. He had a great time, was in a good mood and even outlasted his 7-year-old brother on the trip home.
I attribute all of this to dad and think it is our payoff for parenting our now 7-year-old through sleepless nights until he was almost 3. And, again, it is fun to write about a topic that is easy at our household – now just don’t ask us about the binky issue!