Lately I have been struggling with my two toddler boys misbehaving and acting wild and too rambunctious. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve been cooped up all winter or that we have a new baby in the family or maybe this is just normal behavior for two and three year old boys. Whatever the reason, I was getting very frustrated every day as it seemed that all I did was referee the kids’ playtime and break up arguments and discipline them. So, I decided to try something to help out this situation and what do you know? It helped tremendously!
Here’s what I did: I searched online for preschool activity ideas, thinking that I could enhance my boy’s education with some fun activities that would also keep them occupied. I found a couple of good websites–www.dltk-kids.com; www.teachersandfamilies.com; www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com. There are many more websites out there that have tons of fun ideas and activities that help to keep kids entertained and learning important skills at the same time.
Now every day after breakfast is over and the baby is down for her nap the boys and I sing silly songs, march around like different animals, color, cut, glue and paint and have a snack. The boys play more nicely with each other after this preschool time and are better behaved all day.
The only downside I’ve seen so far is that the breakfast dishes stay undone a little longer and the laundry sits unfolded for the morning. But, I feel so much better when there aren’t fits, arguments and tantrums constantly so when the boys take their nap in the afternoon I have the energy to do the housework that I neglected in the morning. Plus it is so much fun to have good quality playtime with the kids and watch them discover their world.
If you are having discipline troubles with your toddlers or even older children I suggest trying something like I did– activities that are both educational and fun that don’t take a lot of preparation time but can be so effective in teaching life skills and good discipline. Try it out and let me know what you find out in a comment.
A friend of mine came to me and asked me how I get everything done in a day, and how with toddler children running around and a baby to take care of, how I get anything done besides the mundane every day tasks. She asked me this on the occasion of a huge Christmas service project that I was in charge of, making 200 stockings for a local homeless shelter. She said “You and I both have three kids, about the same ages. There is no way that I could have done all this work for this project and taken care of my kids. How do you do it?” My answer: “Don’t you dare come to look at my house!!!”
I have decided that some things are much more important to me than having my house sparkly and shiny clean all the time. I do love having a clean and organized house, don’t get me wrong, but rather than spend day in and day out cleaning and cleaning and folding seemingly endless loads of laundry only to start some more and getting entirely burned out and exhausted, sometimes I like to take a break and do something different.
Sometimes it comes from desperation and boredom from completing mundane chores for weeks on end, sometimes it comes from necessity in needing to complete a project, and sometimes it comes from just wanting to do something more fulfilling and fun for a change. So, when those times arise I just let the laundry pile up for a day or two, let the vacuum sit idle for five minutes, and leave the Clorox wipes tucked away in the closet.
Then I can do things like really play with my kids or take them on an outing, complete a project for church, work or home, or do a craft, scrapbook, read a book for pleasure, bust out the sewing machine, or pursue some of my other interests. After a few days the housework gets the better of me and I spend a day catching up, but I always feel more fulfilled and the kids are happier when we’ve taken some time to just enjoy life, play, and let the little daily stresses slide for a day or two.
My friend said that she gets so wound up and stressed about keeping her house clean and organized- she finds herself cleaning up after messes constantly and always working to keep it clean, so she starts losing patience and just wants to give up because it’s not even fun and she can’t enjoy her children.
I heard someone say once that “the dust and the cobwebs can wait, but children aren’t children forever.” I’ve taken that as my philosophy- I try to play and interact with my kids without constantly worrying about the state of the house, I try to be a good and fun wife to my husband so he’s not always bogged down with work and worry, and I try to keep my own interests and passions fulfilled so I feel like a whole and happy person.
Of course I always love having a clean and organized house, who doesn’t? But if a real feeling of happiness requires the breakfast dishes to wait in the sink until after the kids are in bed for the night, that’s okay with me.
Some days aren’t you just ready to quit? Yesterday, for reasons beyond my control or no reason at all, both of my toddler boys were cranky.
Typically my children wake up happy in the morning, play and romp around until lunchtime, eat and then take a nice two hour or so nap. After resting time, as we call it in our house, the boys get up and play and look forward to Daddy coming home from work. They help me make dinner and set the table, clean up the toys to make the house look nice again and then wrestle with Daddy until we eat. After dinner it’s usually more playtime with Daddy and then time for bedtime stories and a bath and by 8:15 or so they’re tucked in their beds on their way down for a good twelve hour sleep.
It sounds ideal, especially since we’re talking about a just-turned-three year old and a twenty month old boy. Of course, it doesn’t always go as planned.
Yesterday was one of those days. Oddly enough, both boys woke up in the morning crying and whining. (Why does it always have to be both on the same day?) Before we’d even been able to eat breakfast both boys had already thrown at least one fit (heaven forbid I gave them the wrong spoon to eat their yogurt!) and it just went downhill after that. By ten o’clock in the morning I was ready to put them both back in bed. It seemed that they couldn’t play for two minutes without there being a major crisis, and then they’d just throw back their heads and scream.
Finally after lunch I was able to put them down for a nap. Both boys fell asleep almost immediately and I crossed my fingers that they’d take an especially long nap so they could wake up and be my normal happy boys again. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. A mere forty five minutes into their nap my youngest yelled out and wouldn’t be comforted back to sleep. Ten minutes after that his brother also woke up crying and was done with his rest.
We tried lots of quiet activities to help calm them during the afternoon– playing with playdoh, reading books, coloring. Still the whole day was just full of whining and tantrums and a whole lot of tears. When their Daddy got home from work the boys didn’t even acknowledge him– they were too busy complaining that they didn’t want what we were having for dinner and they wanted the blue plates, not the orange ones.
I finally realized that my twenty month old was probably cranky because his second molars are starting to come in. He’s always had a hard time with teething. A low dose of Infant Tylenol did wonders to help him feel better and actually be able to sleep through the night. My three year old though had no apparent excuses, it was just an off day. Luckily both kids went to bed right at 8 and slept well and today has been a much happier day.
It’s hard as a mom to not feel like you just want to throw in the towel and curl up in your own bed when the kids are so cranky. What do you do to cope with days like I had yesterday? Let me know what I can do to keep my sanity and help my children get past these grumpy episodes by adding your comments.
One of the biggest challenges of raising babies and children is keeping them fed and happy. Almost the minute a baby is born, even before the difficulty of labor and childbirth is entirely over, a newborn should be introduced to the world of breastfeeding, if the mother chooses to breastfeed.
When I was younger I had no idea what breastfeeding entailed. I thought, since it is the natural choice for feeding a baby, that breastfeeding just came naturally to infant and mother and that it was easy and convenient to do. When I was expecting my first baby I was given information on breast feeding and discussed it with my doctor. Still, I was not prepared for the actuality of the situation when the day finally arrived.
My baby boy wouldn’t latch on properly and when he did he promptly fell asleep within a minute. Needless to say, it took us several weeks to come to an understanding– I had to be available for feeding 24/7 and he got to eat whenever he decided to. By the time he was six weeks old or so we had a pretty good feeding schedule and he was getting to be a pro at the whole idea.
However, something else that I had not been prepared for was the discomfort that I felt. Not all new mothers experience pain from breastfeeding their babies, but with my first I had such tremendous pain sometimes that I would just sit and cry while my baby was eating. I wasn’t about to quit, because I know how good it is for the baby, but it definitely was not the sweet bonding experience that I had always thought it would be. It hurt 90% of the time until we were finally done breastfeeding nine months later.
My second baby was different. He latched on well right after he was born, and aside from some minor ups and downs through the months ahead it was a much better experience. Even though I didn’t think I was doing anything different I didn’t have the same pain that I did with my first… luckily!
Another challenge that I was not prepared for when I started breastfeeding my baby was the milk supply and demand issue. Again, I’ve heard stories that some women are challenged with too much breastmilk, so they have to express some before or after nursing the baby in order to be comfortable. Others seem to have just enough and can feed “on demand”.
My problem was a lack of available milk, though I tried everything that the lactation consultant and my doctor and baby’s pediatrician recommended to solve the problem. I changed my eating habits to include more fat, I didn’t exercise because I’d heard that that can diminish milk supply soon after childbirth, I pumped regularly to induce milk let down… and still I would only have barely enough to satisfy my babies.
I really wanted to breastfeed my children until they reached one year old. I started both boys on rice cereal and introduced fruits and vegetables between 4 and 5 months, when my doctor recommended because the babies weren’t gaining enough weight on breast milk alone. Even with solids and breast milk I still had to supplement with two or three ounces of formula once a day to satiate my boys’ appetites.
By the time my first was nine months old he’d had it with the frustration of trying to eat from me so we quit cold turkey. I didn’t even get engorged after that– that’s how little milk my body was producing. With my second baby we made it to ten months and then it just made him calmer and happier to have a bottle instead of breastfeed. I’m hoping that this next baby will be a little less challenging and that I can experience the “too much” problem instead. I always hated feeling like I couldn’t feed my children what they needed to grow and develop and be comfortable. It was definitely not what I was expecting when I decided to breastfeed my babies.
Of course, now that my boys are toddlers, the challenge of feeding them has just changed, it hasn’t gone away. Now it’s a matter of getting enough healthy options on the table in front of them and actually getting it into their tummies. I don’t have particularly picky eaters, but still it’s hard to get nutritious meals and snacks into them so they keep a strong immune system and have plenty of energy for playing hard like boys do.
I know I’m not the only one who struggles with the challenge of feeding children. Let me know what solutions you’ve found by adding your stories, suggestions and comments.
Check out this hilarious video too– this cute baby says it all with his expressions.
A couple of days ago we undecorated for Christmas. It’s kind of a sad day, but on the flip side it’s also nice to get the house back in order. The kids thought it was great fun to take all of the ornaments off of the Christmas tree and fit them back into their boxes. They watched as each string of lights was wound up and unplugged, and then our three year old got lifted up to take the star off the top of the tree. Growing up I always had a real tree, so after Christmas was over we would take it to a tree recycling place and watch it get chipped up for compost. Now we have an artificial tree, so the kids helped scrunch the branches and put it away in it’s box until next year.
After the tree was down we took down the empty stockings, put away the nativity, wrapped up the snow globe, unwound the garlands and put away the Christmas dishes. When we were done my husband and I looked around the living room and said “Hmm, it’s boring in here now.” Five minutes after the excitement of taking everything down was over our little boy came to us and said “We need the Christmas tree back up!” We told him that it would have to wait for next year and there are lots of fun times between now and then… but still we are kind of left with an empty after the holidays feeling.
Our cozy living room, although nicely decorated, is back to being just the same as it always is. The kitchen is no longer full to the brim with holiday treats (our waists are thanking us). And the kids are back on a normal day to day routine instead of on holiday/vacation craziness. There are plenty of new toys and books lining the shelves and scattered on the floor. Snow is still falling every couple of days- just enough to keep it cold and white outside. But, there’s something about January that can just make us stir-crazy inside the house.
So, how to beat the January doldrums? Kids get bored of being cooped up in the house 99 percent of the time, especially little ones who aren’t in school yet, with too much free time on their hands. I think that children need a lot of structured play instead of an afternoon for nothing but a pile of toys or television or computer games. I’ve made my New Year’s resolution– I’m going to devote more of my time to really play with my kids, who are all toddlers at this time, teach them new and exciting things and help them to develop interests and favorite activities and games.
Where to begin… One of my favorite magazines is Family Fun. It’s issues are usually full of fun activities and projects appropriate for many different age groups. They have a great website where you can search for and find practically anything. Check out www.familyfun.go.com for lots of ideas to keep your little ones busy for the rest of the winter.
Another great place to find ideas (and to spend an entire morning or afternoon in the process) is to visit your local library. A lot of libraries schedule story times for different age groups– start with that and then browse for activity books or fun books for you and your kids to read together.
Check out local attractions like you’re a tourist. Every city has fun things to see and do– you just have to find them. For example, I’ve lived in the same city for the last ten years and never knew until last year that there was an aquarium only 20 minutes away. It’s now one of our favorite places to go and explore. The kids love seeing all of the exotic and local fish. Other places to see might be historical sites in your own hometown, museums, art galleries, the zoo (they say the animals are more active when it’s cold outside), or a nice sledding hill after a snowstorm.
We did something crazy the other day– it had just snowed but it was only about 15 degrees outside, so much too cold to go out and play. The kids were looking out the window longingly at the drifts of snow just begging to be played in. So, we took some big plastic mixing bowls from the kitchen, filled them to the brim with snow, set them and the boys on the tile floor and gave them spoons and measuring cups and let them have at it. For the next hour, while the snow was slowly melting, they had a blast! They got their hands good and cold, made a nice wet mess on the floor (that was easy to mop up with a sponge), and laughed and had the time of their lives.
Not all winter-boredom-busting ideas have to be expensive, out of the house, or time-consuming for the parents. Let me know what you do with your children when they get bored with a comment.
Nothing is quite as infectiously happy as watching or hearing a baby laugh. Seriously, I don’t know of anyone who can see a little baby’s smile, hear a happy toddler giggle or tickle a baby to make her laugh who doesn’t end up smiling or laughing themselves. Children help to remind us of our own happy childhoods and their laughter and adorable toothy or toothless smiles make us smile too.
They say that a mother knows her children by their cry, but I would have to say that I know my children by their laughter as well. It’s the sound that I definitely prefer over crying and it makes me feel like I might be doing a good job of being a mommy if my kids can go around the house laughing all day.
My twenty month old little boy earned himself the nickname Cheez-it a few months ago when he learned to put on a special face for the camera or anytime we asked him to smile. It is such a hilarious grin and he gets so excited and happy when we laugh at it that he does it even more. Now we can be sitting around the dinner table and we will look over at him to find him grinning us down, just wanting us to see how happy he is and make us smile too. It makes cleaning up after him a whole lot easier (as he’s also known as the messiest eater on the block!)
I am sure that every parent prefers laughter to crying, and I’m also sure that all of us have memories of our babies first smile that will never leave our minds. Check out some of these cute babies caught on tape laughing and giggling out of pure joy. I bet it will brighten your day! Let me know with a comment.
Nothing is quite as exciting as watching children at Christmas time. This morning I had the pleasure of witnessing the pure joy of innocence as my three year old really was able to anticipate Santa’s arrival and woke up so excited. He woke up and the first thing he said was “Did Santa come to our house? Did he bring presents? Can I go and see him?” He thought Santa was going to stay at our house after making his deliveries.
Our 20 month old is too little to really understand everything that’s going on, but he caught on to the present opening and new toys really fast and was so excited every time we put another present in front of him. The toys he was happiest with and carried around the longest were the simplest toys that Santa had brought– a little toy truck and a suction-cup ball that sticks to any hard surface. He walked around the house saying “Ball, car, ball, car!”
As a parent the thing I want most for Christmas is for my kids to be able to have those happy memories that I remember from my own childhood. Christmas has a different meaning for me now that I have kids- it’s no longer about what I want or what I get surprised with. It’s all about making Christmas magical for my children so I can see their happy faces and tell them how much I love them.
This year I also had the opportunity to help with a project to bring Christmas to homeless children in our community. I got to organize the making of 200 Christmas stockings in an organization of women in my neighborhood. It was a neat experience to watch a couple dozen women donate supplies, money, time and creativity to the project, all for children they would probably never meet.
This was just another reminder to me that Christmas is a time to think beyond ourselves and reach out to love the world. Whether this is a community project or within the walls of our own homes, I think every person can make a huge difference in the world. Merry Christmas!
Leave a comment to let me know how your Christmas was.