A Couple of Lessons Learned

As parents, we spend a lot of time teaching our kids. Whether it’s to say “ma-ma" or "da-da” or trying to teach them how to read and how ‘no’ and ‘know’ sound the same but mean something entirely different. Each day they are learning and it’s our job to help them to the best of our ability. But they teach us too!

The top three that I learned the hard way a couple weeks ago were:

1. Mom is completely uncool.

She might show a glimmer of hope to be cool, when we are cruising in the car, with the windows down, sunglasses on, radio turned way up, and listening to Alabama’s Reckless song...

“Let’s roll the windows down turn the radio up

Let the wind blow through our hair

Love is reckless, lets get reckless tonight.”

Well it’s like Fight Club, and everyone knows that the first rule of Fight Club is you do NOT talk about Fight Club. So even though mom may show a smidgen of coolness it all goes out the window when she tells someone else about this car ride. Oh and did I mention my son is only 5 years old?!

Duct Tape 'Em Down

Spring is here - flowers, fresh cut grass, and bike riding.

When my son was 3 years old we purchased a bike with training wheels. We would go outside and ride which meant my son would sit on the seat and hold the handle bars while I pushed him. For whatever reason he kept refusing to keep his feet on the pedals, let alone help by pedaling. Sometimes the pedals would spin by themselves, sometimes they wouldn't, but he would not keep his feet on them, he'd even go as far as to raise his legs and prop them on the front tire fender.

As a baby he had riding toys and we'd push him around the house and he'd prop his feet on the front so he didn't have to do any work and his feet wouldn't brush the carpet. You can see...the baby sister has the same idea, hold her legs up and let momma do the pushing.

Anyway, back to my 3 year old son, I was tired of pushing all the time and more was tired that he wasn't trying to learn to do it himself. SO...I went into the garage in search of duct tape. One way or another he was keeping his feet on those pedals. Yes, I duct taped his feet onto the pedals so he'd learn to bicycle his legs, even if he wasn't pedaling with force, he was going to do the motion. My husband pulled into the driveway and looked at me, looked at my son, looked back up at me shaking his head and asked "what in the world are you doing?" For me it was quite simple, I was fixing the problem. My husband really tried not to laugh and call me crazy. After three days of this, my son learned to keep his feet circling.

Now he's 5 years old and he's been riding his bike as much as he can. About two weeks ago, he asked my husband to take the training wheels off. Without any discussion my husband walked into the garage to get a tool to remove them. Um...my first thought was no, no, no....I can't hold him upright on the bike while he pedals and hold the baby. He loves his bike and it's too soon, I don't want him frustrated with riding. But and here's the big but - I didn't say a word, I kept quiet. Which if you know me well, this was huge! Me, quiet about something I didn't think was a good idea, this was/is rare.

Easter Eggs

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.

My son's break lasts until Friday so he's still in relax and eat all the candy he can mode. He has also continually talked about the Easter Egg Hunt he had at my aunt's. And is constantly telling his baby sister how much better he is at finding eggs than she is - he's 5, she's 10 months.

When my son was almost two, my husband and I took him to a community egg hunt close to where we lived and I had my eyes opened. I had never heard of people just scattering all the eggs on the ground or watched adults race for eggs while knocking over little, tiny kids. They were claiming to help their kids but...well when you are knocking over toddlers, you aren't just helping. My husband tried to stand by one egg and let our son walk to it, however it was quickly picked up by an adult. It looked as if my husband may rip it back out of her hand, but he clenched his jaw and found another egg. Let me mention that because we didn't expect the adults picking up eggs, finding just one was a little harder than you may think. People run! And I'm not referring to the kids. Anyway, he found one egg, brought it close to my son, set it down to let our son "find" it. We cheered for him and then abruptly left. I never wanted to experience that again!

The following years I found much smaller hunts but it was always the same, eggs just scattered on the ground, no hidden eggs while little kids search. I also found ones that adults don't hunt, I mean help. (Unless it's actually helping the little, little kids.) We also hide eggs in our yard for our son to find because he likes searching and then we switch - he hides them for one of us to find.

This year, my aunt invited us to her house for dinner and an egg hunt. I knew he would love this! I knew I would love this.

Photos from the Weekend

Sharing some of our weekend pictures. 

Field trip Friday -  my son got to milk a cow…

…and feed a baby calf.

Riding a bike without training wheels. 

Saturday - Kiddos before the Miracle Bunny Race. 

Baby girl and dad at the race. 

Momma and her two ducks. 

My son racing in the Bunny Hop. 

And instead of doing the 5K after the bunny race he chose to get his face painted and play. (Oh and please disregard all the junk in the garage.)

Baby girl. 

Sunday - Early Easter Basket

"Nana! You want me to wear what?!"

"I am TRYING to look at my book."

"Momma, I don't want this hat on!"

"I'll smile now that I don't have to wear that hat!"

Around the Block

 Well I was only planning on walking with my mom around the block, but you can go too. 

 You can walk too deer, but you don't need to be so close. 

 You look hungry, I'll feed you. 

 Okay, you want more, I'll have my mom go get more food. 

Hey, hey, I'm out of food. Stay out of my pockets!

My son and I went for a quick walk around the block, as you can see, he found a friend. He actually wanted to bring him inside and keep as a pet, of course I said no. But my son wasn't deterred, he thought of the next best thing - let's bring the dog's crate outside so he can keep the deer and it wouldn't be in the house. 

Nope, nope, nope!

Dentist Waiting Room Book

My son had a dentist appointment on the calendar this week and maybe most parents don't mind going to routine cleanings or even doctor's appointments, but I dread them. I always take both my kids to these 'well child visits' and my son to the dentist but I just can't help but wish we didn't have to go and wait in the waiting room. Now their current pediatrician and the pediatric dentist are phenomenal and I would recommend to anyone, especially the pediatrician but I think from previous experiences, I'm predetermined to cringe when I see the appointments on our calendar. The waiting room can turn very quickly into a stressful meltdown situation.

We arrive at the dentist and my son races to the building as I'm carrying the baby girl in the car seat that she sees as a 5-point harness death trap. She screams, cling to my hair or shirt before I can pull her away and into the seat to go anywhere. I thought, well I had hoped, that maybe, just maybe she'd fall asleep on the drive so she would sleep like a little angel during the dentist check-up. Oh silly momma, such wishful thinking!

Luckily we made it down the steps without running into anyone and walked into the waiting room. Only one person - oh this is great, maybe we'll be next. As I was signing my son in, he had already found a book for me to read.

I sat down beside him and began to read "Listen, Buddy" and as soon as I started the baby girl decided she couldn't stand the car seat a minute longer and needed out immediately. The woman in the waiting room, looked up at the screaming and I imagine thought, 'oh great a screaming baby, and this mom is going to read out loud to her kid.' In my defense, I bounced the baby girl so she would stop fussing and read quietly to my son.

The book he chose was about a rabbit not listening, whose father has a big nose - he is a great sniffer and whose mother has beautiful teeth - she is a great chomper. Buddy, the young rabbit, has beautiful, big ears, but he mishears everything because he doesn't listen, including when they give him directions for his first long hop. Instead of the path to the left and to the pond, he takes the path to the right straight to the cave of Scruffy Varmint. Scruffy directs Buddy to gather ingredients to make soup and put it on the fire. Buddy dumps the soup in the fire and Scruffy Varmint says he's going to have bunny rabbit soup instead! Buddy barely escapes but when he does make it home, he starts to listen to his parents.

Overall, it's a very cute story. However at the end of me reading it to my son, I asked him if he understood. He looks straight up at me and replies, not really, I wasn't really listening. AAAAAHHHH!

The woman sitting in the waiting room, started to laugh, she tried very hard to not let my son see but really, how can you not laugh. I read 30 pages about listening, and how important it is, the bunny almost was soup because he refused to listen, and my son didn't pay a bit of attention.

This is my life! :)