Category: Kids/Parenting

Tips, tricks and adventures in parenting two kids.

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Kids/Parenting

My kids saw their gifts–now what?

I love surprises, and to me, surprises are part of the joy of giving gifts. In the interest of keeping everything a surprise for Christmas, Saturday I pulled out all my kids’ gifts from me and wrapped almost all of them. I decided to save four odd-shaped ones until later, when I’d have more boxes to wrap in.

(Don’t feel too bad, I’m not that on top of things: it’s December, and also, I just bought the stuff the day before.)

And then, like an idiot, I left ALL the presents in the middle of the family room. The kids got up before me the next day and found the gifts. Oy.

I asked my mom what to do and she recommended I tell them how we were planning on donating some toys to charity (and, of course, actually doing so—just not with those particular toys).

I like this idea a lot because it kills two birds—or some less violent cliché. I want Christmas to be about giving (you know, after being about Jesus), especially giving to those in need, and I want to involve my kids in that. And of course, I want them to still be surprised on Christmas day. (That might be three birds.)

Since the kids are getting new toys for Christmas, I really want them to pick at least a few toys of theirs that they don’t really play with anymore that we can donate to other kids. (This also helps to make room for our incoming toys.) It’s a little hard to find places that want used toys, but I’m thinking a local women’s shelter and possibly the food bank (they take used toys for only their waiting room, but still).

A few useful links:
Kids’ Health article on getting your kids to donate their toys
And a fun lesson to help emphasize Jesus at Christmastime when Santa offer stiff competition: Santa as a type of Christ (seriously!)

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Kids/Parenting

Rachel’s half birthday!

Today is Rachel’s half birthday! She’s 18 months old! And we celebrated by going to Nursery one whole day early!

But first: I wrote last week about her signs. In the last four or five days, Rachel has picked up three new words, probably the most important in a baby’s vocabulary: Mama, Dada and . . . NO. Noooo. No. No. She can nod, but she just loves her new word so much that even when the answer is yes, she says, “No.”

It’s a little annoying sometimes, but as she was protesting getting dressed the other day, I realized that she’s never been able to exercise control like that before. It’s not that she doesn’t want to get dressed (she didn’t fight me at all), it’s that she wants to be independent.

Except for, of course, when she doesn’t. I was a little worried about her starting Nursery since she’s had a bit of separation anxiety lately. Hayden, however, was very excited for Rachel to go to Nursery, so the whole family walked down to the room with her after Sacrament Meeting. With Rebecca demonstrating, we washed her hands with sanitizer.

She was a little unsure of what to do—or whether she liked it—until I showed her to the “hors d’oeuvres” on one of the tables: a pile of pretzels and a pile of marshmallows. I stuck a pretzel in her mouth and she was sold. She climbed into the nearest chair and didn’t care whether we were there or not.

Rebecca still has a month left in Nursery, so we charged her with helping Rachel. The Nursery leader told us afterwards that Rebecca would sometimes look around for Rachel, saying, “Whewe’s my baby?” (At first they thought this was a doll until they saw she meant Rachel.)

Ryan, who normally takes Rachel during church since I’m in Primary, had the same experience, basically—he’d have a flash of panic, wondering, “Where’s Rachel?” and look around for her before he remembered.

Rachel handled it best of all. I had to pop in twice for other Primary stuff and each time, she was busy participating (if a bit timidly). She didn’t even notice me. She even colored her picture.

After church, Rebecca reported that she “‘Tected Wachew and made soy [sure] nobody take her and bees her new mommy” at Nursery.

But I think Rachel herself summed it up best. I asked her if she had so much fun in Nursery. She answered with a very solemn, “Noooo.”

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Kids/Parenting

Rachel Banana

Rachel loves to wiggle and shake. The other day I watched her waggling her head all around. “I love your dancing,” I told her.

She smiled, and either blew me a kiss—or signed thank you.

Rachel’s middle name is Diana; she’s named after my mother. Growing up, my mother had a nickname she absolutely hated: Banana Cake. (I only tell you this in the strictest confidence. Do NOT use this against my mother.)

Rachel doesn’t really talk. For a couple days, she said “Out” a lot. She has managed to hold onto “Uh ohs!” whenever she sees something on the ground. But her signs are really picking up. She’s gotten really good at Thank you, and also learned please, apple, baby and:

Rachel, banana.

I also love how she signs music:

The “official signs”: banana, music.

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Kids/Parenting

Rebecca sayings

Ryan and I were talking last night about how Rebecca didn’t really talk until she was at least 18 months old. In fact, she hardly ever even made noise until she discovered screaming at 8 months. Even her laughter was quiet: scrunching her nose and sniffing.

Yeah, those days are a distant memory now. But with the cute things she says, I guess it’s okay.

Rebecca got her first real haircut!


Just kidding! (Silly you.)

We bought a bag of Reese’s minis for Rebecca as an incentive. “Are dey gowd?”

“Yes, they’re gold.”

“Are dey gowd doub’oons? [Doubloons] . . . No, dey are just gowd.”

Rebecca gets her middle name right about half the time; the other half she thinks her middle name is the same as Hayden’s (a mistake he’s just learning to correct). But she knows Rachel’s middle name, apparently because I say it so much. She even knows what it means:

“Waychew Deana [Rachel Diana] means ‘Come hewe!'”

“Good job, Bex,” I told her as we were cleaning up.

“No, I not Bex. I jus’ one Becca!”

During Rachel’s nap one Saturday, I left the other kids playing on the computer while Ryan went to church for a bit. When I came back from my shower, Rebecca announced, “We take gooood cawe of Wachew, Mommy! We takin’ good cawe o’ ouwsewves.”


Rebecca the ice princess (note the hat and the tiara)

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Kids/Parenting

Hayden’s writing, too!

Hayden isn’t just reading—he’s writing, too. He was rambling about putting a period at the end of a sentence, and I stopped him long enough to understand that he knows what a period is.

Then I found this in his backpack: illustrated and written by Hayden himself.

It says “I ate spagetti.” AKA “I a A.” Note the table, plate, and fork in the picture.

So I promptly sat him down at the table and had him write a sentence, using two sight words, a word from a story we’d read that afternoon, and a word he could sound out.

Then we sounded out/practiced his full name on the back and left the note for Dad on his pillow. He was pretty pleased (and surprised!) to get it.

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Kids/Parenting

Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

We almost didn’t do a family costume this year, since initially Rebecca wanted to be a princess and Hayden wanted to be a ghost. After flirting with the idea of pirates, finally Hayden settled on . . . KING, “for Princess Becca.” (Becca, however, insisted she was “Princess Beyya” and also from Princess and the Frog. Got me.)

Rachel’s sticky gem tiara lasted longer than half her earrings—but still not very long.

I made Rebecca’s dress, and you can read more about that over on Wayward Girls’ Crafts (if that doesn’t work, I’ll be along to fix it soon!).

Here’s the royal family. If Hayden’s the king, I guess I’m the Regent. No way I’m letting my five year old rule the country. And I just realized our royal orders are worn opposite. Oh well.

At the end of the night, we handed down our tiaras for a little while:

And where was Ryan? Well, mostly he was running the church Halloween party, but when you caught a glimpse of him, he was part of the entourage, too.

Head of royal security, of course. (And yes, it was his idea.)

What are you doing for Halloween?