Category: Kids/Parenting

Tips, tricks and adventures in parenting two kids.

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Kids/Parenting

Hayden’s sayings

Hayden is a smart kid. Sometimes, a little too smart for his own good.

Hayden has been working on behavior incentives at school. Every morning before school, we review what he needs to work on that day. His first day, he did a good job. The next morning as we walked to school, I told him, “You’re doing so well, Hayden. We want to keep it up, right?”

H: “Well, I don’t want to keep it down!”

image
Watching a crane at work

“Mom, that car [he might have said “Vehicle”] over there is taking a lot of gas. It’s an S-U-Vay.”

From time to time, Hayden requests to play a CD of Primary music. One of these times, “I Love to See the Temple” was playing in the background as the kids were playing. Hayden found a golf ball.

Rebecca: “Hayden, I want to see!”

Hayden: “You want to see the temple?”

Rebecca: “No, I want to see the gowf baww!”

Video of the above photo:

(Turned out to be a supply closet, actually.)

He sometimes watches a PBS Kids Go webtoon about nutrition. The cartoon has drummed it into his brain that sodium is the big bad evil lurking in most foods—so he insists on checking the sodium level on every nutrition label.

He’s taken this so far that one of his favorite meals, Spaghettios, must be eaten in moderation, because half a can has around 25% of the DRV of sodium.

I hope he lives a long, funny life.

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Kids/Parenting

Evolution works! (Or: Five reasons why babies are cute)

A flashback from three years ago when Rebecca was a baby.

I’m not really going to get into a theory of evolution debate here—really, the more appropriate headline would be “Natural selection works.” I totally believe that and I see evidence of it in my everyday life (“natural selection” is just a lot longer than “evolution”).

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Genetics at work: my mother and my daughter

As a mother of very young children, I can tell you exactly how demanding and frustrating babies and toddlers can be—but I’ve come to believe that a babies’ cuteness is, in fact, an inherited defense mechanism against some of their most motherly-frustration-inducing behaviors. My evidence:

  1. Cuddling: Although waking me for the eighth time in six hours is decidedly not a good way into my good graces, a quiet, sweet, snuggling baby is pretty tough to stay angry at.
  2. Gurgling giggles: It’s five AM and the infant thinks it’s time to get up for the day. But before I can burst into tears, she sees my face and wham—instant gales of excited laughter. Even if I’m not quite as happy to see her at that hour, it’s hard not to forgive her when she’s just so happy to see me.
  3. Nap time: When I reach my wits’ end, I know it’s time for a nap (for me and/or the kids 😉 ). This can be a double whammy, especially if the baby or toddler is obviously tired but still averse to said nap, and spends half an hour screaming—because when they finally succumb to the much-needed sleep, it’s all the sweeter to peek in on the peacefully slumbering angel (and pray it lasts!).
  4. Baby talk: Sure, you can argue their articulatory muscles aren’t fully developed enough to appreciate the nuances of the lateral approximate, but let’s face it: somewhere in his DNA, my son knows that “I yub you!” melts even an annoyed heart faster than plain old “I love you.”
  5. Stoic tears: Okay, this one might not be entirely genetic, but who wouldn’t forgive a tantrum from tiny child who bravely insists that he must wipe his own tears?

What other naturally cute behaviors have you seen that totally take the wind out of your frustration?

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Kids/Parenting

Talking up a storm

Rachel is learning new words every week. Two of my recent favorites include “Yah” and “Suh” (sure). (That also kind of worries me that I’m raising the world’s most flippant one-year-old….)

However, it’s hard to beat this one:

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Kids/Parenting

Rebecca is clever

Rebecca is three and a half now (and she’ll gladly tell you this!). And let me tell you—we love to hear her talk. And sing. Here are some cute phrases from her I’ve collected over the last few months:

One afternoon, she was playing with Hayden and his fire truck. Seeking his attention, she exclaimed, “I’m a fiwe [fire]! Buwn buwn buwn buwn!”

It worked.

A couple months ago we had a mouse. In our house. Shudder.

Rebecca’s reaction, however, was on the other end of the spectrum. “Mayme we can do sumping nice fow de mouse!” [Maybe we can do something nice for the mouse!]

We decided not to, however, and trapped and killed it. When I explained this all to Rebecca, she concluded, “Dewe awe no wive mice in ours wowd [world].”

Rebecca climbed onto Hayden’s bike, but couldn’t make it go. I asked if she needed something. She said she did.

“A new bike. It’s whoa on enderdy [energy].”

Rebecca had some . . . bathroom issues recently. It looks like she’s all better now, but at once upon a time, I told her her bummy was telling her it was time to poop. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Bummies can’t talk ’cause dey awe not awive.” She lowered her eyes and her voice. “Duh.”

Finally, my sister recorded this original composition by Rebecca a couple weeks ago:

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Kids/Parenting

Today’s post

Is over on the MamaBlogga Facebook Page, largely because that was the only way to get the video off Ryan’s cell camera.

Check out the cute video of Rachel’s latest song and dance. Five words: interpretive dance and JAZZ HANDS. I’m so not joking!

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Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Mom’s love does a child’s brain good!

My sister came across this article on cognitive development and just new I’d love it. She’s right, because child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that:

School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.

Even in a very limited setting—all the nurturing was done at the lab, and they didn’t follow the parents and children home—they were able to observe the difference between children whose parents supported them and those who didn’t:

As part of the initial study, the children were closely observed and videotaped interacting with a parent, almost always a mother, as the parent was completing a required task, and the child was asked to wait to open an attractive gift. How much or how little the parent was able to support and nurture the child in this stressful circumstance — which was designed to approximate the stresses of daily parenting — was evaluated by raters who knew nothing about the child’s health or the parent’s temperament.

“It’s very objective,” says Luby, professor of child psychiatry. “Whether a parent was considered a nurturer was not based on that parent’s own self-assessment. Rather, it was based on their behavior and the extent to which they nurtured their child under these challenging conditions.”

The difference? An almost 10% in the size of the hippocampus.

That’s enough to make me worried I’m not nurturing enough 😉 .

What do you think? What other influences do moms have on minds?