parenting

Badges of Fun – September

Sep 14 2011

We are continuing with the year-long Badges of Fun series from Disney’s FamilyFun Magazine, where each month has a theme for fun family activities. September’s badge is about learning something new to help get families back into school mode.

Our family chose to play with the alphabet and help Jack work on his word-building skills. At school they are working on filling in missing letters in the alphabet. We wanted to help him continue to hone these skills at home while exposing Will to more letters of the alphabet.

I started out my putting individual letters onto sticky notes and putting them on the wall, then mixing them up. Jack would then work on putting them in order. We had both upper and lower case letters in two different locations. But the sticky notes kept falling off the wall.

Version two included some wooden letters I recycled out of a letter puzzle, some sticky dots and a piece of poster board. The only problem with this one is that the dots are too sticky and make it harder for him to remove the letters. At least they weren’t falling on the floor – far from it.

For version three I want to make them magnetic or find something that is easier to stick and unstick. We are going to use them to help Jack spell small words and have Will learn to identify letters. Will likes to mimic what his brother is doing and will pretend to spell or sound words out.

These exercises have been a fun way to get everyone in back-to-school mode. Are you participating in Badges of Fun? What activities has your family been doing?

Filed Under: Jackson, parenting, William Tagged With: alphabet, Badges of Fun, Disney FamilyFun Magazine 7 Comments

Good Sports

Aug 10 2011

It is hard to teach our kids how to be a good sport when we are confronted every day with so many bad examples of sportsmanship. It is no longer exclusive to the NBA or the NFL, it even now permeates the most gentleman of sports, golf.

Over the weekend, Tiger Woods’ former caddie, Steve Williams, helped his new boss, golfer Adam Scott, win the Bridgestone Invitational. Williams has been an interesting subject for reporters over the years, and most recently after he was let go by Tiger. After the win over the weekend, Williams was interviewed on the 18^th green by CBS (it is unusual for caddies to speak at all but Williams is known to open his mouth from time to time). He told reporters this was the best win he has ever had. Keep in mind that he caddied Tiger to 13 majors wins and 16 world titles. Tiger paid him millions of dollars in salary of his tenure. Williams proceeded to show his obvious bitterness about his dismissal last month and we are all left to wonder why he would lash out in such an immature manner against someone who has made him a multi-millionaire for carrying a golf bag. Regardless of the circumstances of his firing, it was a classless act and Williams should be ashamed.

We work very hard at raising our boys to be balanced, well-rounded individuals, who are loving and kind as well as strong and confident. As they are starting to play sports we are already confronted with a shocking amount of competitiveness. In our second year of T-ball there is already a push for the boys to be hitting pitched balls, keeping score and making outs. The kids are six. What happened to learning fundamentals, rules, sportsmanship and having fun?

Jack — who isn’t overly competitive in daily life – already gets frustrated when he doesn’t win (including board games). Competition is engrained in most of his social settings with other friends. We keep hoping things will balance out so he and other kids can learn how to handle themselves with grace and dignity.

With all the bad examples of sportsmanship, we as a family try hard to find positive role models for our boys. Luckily we have had an ideal role model right in our backyard for the last four years — Jake Locker, the former quarterback of the University of Washington Huskies and current quarterback of the Tennessee Titans (and Jim’s man crush.) Jake is a local boy who decided to stay close to home to go to college even though the program was a shell of what it once was. He started for four years, including forgoing a chance to go out in the 2010 draft and make millions more than he did entering the draft a year later. He handled himself with professionalism and grace even when he was the quarterback of a 0-12 football team.

Every year the Huskies hold a photo day where the players mingle with the fans and take photos. For Jake’s final two seasons Jim wanted to make sure we were not only able to meet Jake, but be first in line. And we were. Given his popularity, the line wrapped around the field. Jake was very sweet with the boys and happily signed the photo of him and the boys from the previous photo day. ESPN even picked Jake to follow during the 2010 season and aired the coverage during the lead up to the draft. It showed what a good person he is on and off the field. Needless to say we are now Tennessee Titan fans in our house (I am sure Jim’s jersey will be arriving any day now.)

We can only hope that our boys learn how to handle themselves like their role model Jake. I hope that we are able to instill the values of good sportsmanship in our boys, so they understand it is not about winning or losing, but about how you play the game.

How have you taught your kids sportsmanship? What tools have you used?

Filed Under: Jackson, parenting, Sports Tagged With: Adam Scott, competition, football, golf, Jake Locker, photo day, sportsmanship, Steve Williams, Tennessee Titans, Tiger Woods, University of Washington 4 Comments

Cars 2 Review

Jul 25 2011

While we were in California, I took the boys to see the movie, Cars 2. Jim and I wanted to take them before we left on our trip, but couldn’t find the time. So I picked a day when the workload wasn’t too much and surprised them with a trip to the movies.

They were so excited, jumping up and down and dancing. We planned to go to a morning movie and then meet Yaya for lunch. Popcorn and candy in hand we got settled into the theater only to be greeted with a 40 minute delay due to a projector problem. There was a 15 minute period of time where I thought I was going to have to drag two hysterical children out of the theater because they were going to cancel the showing. Somehow miraculously Will sat in his seat eating popcorn and reading books until they finally got it working.

Eventually the movie got going and I have to admit I was underwhelmed. I had heard that some of the reviews were negative, but I don’t always agree with the critics. This time I did.

First of all, Lightning McQueen was hardly in the movie; Mater and the new character Finn McMissile were definitely the stars. The story was a lot more complex and violent than it needed to be. The oil and alternative fuel message was too complex for children to understand and if Disney/Pixar put that in for the adults it wasn’t necessary. Interjecting humor throughout the movie for adults is enough. Due to the oil and secret agent storyline there were a lot of guns, shooting and violence. It was bordering on not appropriate for Will.

The best part of the movie, the races and the characters, Lightning McQueen and the race cars from around the world, were completely overshadowed by the oil and secret agent story. They didn’t even show the end of the last race in London. The story could have easily been the races around the world with the big question being who will win. That would have been enough for the kids and for me.

Although the kids will say they loved it, I can say that it is far from my favorite. With that said there were some good moments. My favorite had to be in the very beginning when Crabby, a character designed after the crab fishing boat the Northwestern from Deadliest Catch and voiced Captain Sig Hanson (both from Seattle) took Finn out to the secret oil rigs. I also felt that they did a good job paying tribute to Doc, voiced by the late Paul Newman.

Overall I was disappointed with this much anticipated sequel, because the first one is still one of my favorite cartoons. Maybe they will do better with the next one, if there is a next one. Based on how long it took to make this one, and given its bad reception, I won’t hold my breath.

Filed Under: parenting, reviews Tagged With: Cars 2, Disney, Finn McMissile, Lightning McQueen, Mater, movies, Northwestern, Pixar, Sig Hanson, violence Leave a Comment

Badges of Fun

Jul 07 2011

I recently was introduced to Family Fun magazine by a friend and neighbor. She always has great ideas for the kids, so I thought I would give it a try.

In the June/July issue they launched Badges of Fun to celebrate their 20^th birthday. During each month for the next year families can earn badges by participating in themed activities. Once the month’s activity is complete you are able to post photos on their website and be eligible for some prizes. You can also print out the badges you have completed and display them on the poster.

For June/July the badge is called backyard fun. Some of their suggestions were to camp in your backyard (hmm my bed is too comfortable to do that and the kids are too little to do it on their own), play twilight games (would love to, but it doesn’t get dark until 10 p.m. right now) and make garden art (ding, ding, we have a winner.)

One Friday night we made painted rocks for the flower beds. I found some outdoor paint in a few colors, had a handful of paint brushes and our yard has plenty of rocks. We all sat down on the garage floor and went to work. Will ended up with more paint on his clothes and hands than on the rocks (thank goodness I changed his clothes.)

We only had about six colors, so soon enough we started mixing colors to make new ones. It was a good lesson for Jack about what colors mix to make other ones; impromptu science lesson, who know that would happen.

Once the rocks were dry (a few hours later) and it had stopped raining (a few days later) we placed them out in our flowerbeds. Both boys thought it was fun to put them in groups near some of the flowers. It was a great project, the perfect balance of something Will could do and still challenging for Jack. We have our first badge complete and we checked something off our Summer Fun List.

Filed Under: Crafts, Jackson, parenting, photos, William Tagged With: Badges of Fun, Family Fun magazine, garden art, painting, summer activities 3 Comments

Parental Guidence Suggested

Jun 27 2011

Why are we in such a rush to have our children grow up? It seems like kids today are asked to be mini-adults basically from birth. There is a palpable and pervasive parenting style that appears to be more the norm than not in which children are pressured to be the best – the best athlete, the best musician, the best scholar. While it is not surprising, it is still shocking the extent to which some parents push their children at such an early age to be better at everything than their peers. Now, don’t get me wrong I think some competition is healthy. But when it comes at the expense of a childhood, what is the point?

What happened to the days when kids could just be kids? There was a time not long ago when they didn’t need to be reading in preschool, hitting pitches at age five, or watching Transformers or Iron Man at six. As a parent there is so much pressure to keep up with everyone else that you begin to consider things that you would have thought were completely inappropriate before. Even if you are confident in your morals, it is hard not to question them when the mob is forging ahead without questioning why and at what cost.

It is hard to sit back and let you kids enjoy life, pushing them just enough to keep them motivated, as others are repeatedly pushing their children to the point of burnout before the third grade.

If you choose to dig in on an issue that is important to you, such as movies, then you risk being labeled as the outcast of the group. I try to be pretty conservative about what movies the boys should watch. The pervasive violence in movies today is troubling to me, but I will save that for another post. A number of Jack’s friends have seen movies such as Transformers and Star Trek (a few of them have older brothers, so that changes the rules, ask me about Will and Star Wars sometime). As a result, he asks to watch them frequently because “so-in-so is allowed to watch it.” What am I to do?

I really want to mimic some other friends who are also conservative and wouldn’t let their ten year old watch Avatar, because it was rated PG-13. He was ten, not six. I just don’t know how I am going to hold out until I am ready for him to watch movies like that. I feel like the ratings are there for a reason and more often than not, are a good benchmark.

Kids are kids for such a short period of time – why are parents compelled to force their children to grow up so soon? Life isn’t a race. It’s a journey comprised of all the vivid memories you collect along the way at all stages. Don’t waste it looking beyond.

Filed Under: parenting, rants Tagged With: childhood, competition, movies 1 Comment

Explaining the news

May 04 2011

I hate watching the news. It is never anything good and in order to get viewers most stations have resorted to sensationalizing what is available. Especially having young children I don’t want them to be constantly bombarded with someone getting shot, news on the war or political bickering every evening. (I do read the paper everyday, so I know what is going on in the world.)

With all that said we do watch the Today show in the morning. When the alarm goes off the local news comes on to see what the weather forecast is (not sure why we bother, since they hardly ever get it right more than a few hours in advance) and how bad traffic is. That leads into the Today show, which is news for the first 20 minutes. Once the boys are awake they will come and get in bed with us and watch some of the morning’s headlines.

On Sunday night when news of Osama Bin Laden’s death broke, Jack was still awake. We had some friends over and he was getting ready for bed, but still downstairs, so he heard the news. I don’t remember what questions he asked that night, but the last two mornings he has had more.

Like this morning at breakfast he asked “Was he a bad guy.” I said yes he was. Then I realized that he didn’t live through 9/11 (I knew that but until now I hadn’t thought about the fact that we would have to explain to him what happened that day and why our world would never be the same.) His next question was “What did he do?” So I delicately explained that he told his people to take over airplanes and to fly them into buildings killing over 3000 people. Then he asked “how did they kill him?” I told him that the army found out where he was hiding and went to get him and he fought back.

These were all very good questions and I am glad he asked me. I don’t want to keep him in a complete bubble. If he has questions I want him to ask, but I don’t want him to be scared by things. Luckily we are able to keep our children sheltered from war. They don’t have to live in constant fear, like children in war torn countries around the world. I am counting my blessings today and am thankful for all that we have.

Filed Under: Jackson, parenting Tagged With: current events, news Leave a Comment

Feeding a toddler

Apr 20 2011

Well technically it is cooking for a toddler since they are now feeding themselves and have opinions on their food. Although I am not a short order cook. The boys eat what we do, unless it is really something that they don’t like but we do, then I make a variation for them.

One thing to remember is we are rookies when it comes to feeding toddlers, because Jack wasn’t eating yet. He didn’t eat until almost 2.5 years old and even then he was an atypical experience for a number of reasons. He was eating broccoli, peppers, brussel sprouts and most proteins.

I have heard from many people and experienced friend’s toddlers pickiness. So I was worried about Will considering how our feeding experience started out with him. While he has had his moments as he has been communicating more he is starting to do better. We are able to coax him to eat more of what we want in exchange for him getting more of what he wants.

He, like his brother, has developed a liking for foods that you might not consider normal toddler foods, like artichokes (yes artichokes, he can almost eat a whole one on his own and loves throwing the leaves into the discard bowl. We discourage the throwing), mushrooms, olives and pot stickers. But he doesn’t like typical kid foods like cheese and yogurt.

With Will we struggle to get him to eat veggies, too. I put them on his plate and he is getting better about trying them if I ask, but most of the time they just sit there.

I think that Will is going to my gourmet guy who will be willing to try new foods. He seems open to some stuff already even during this typically picky age. Jack hasn’t expanded his food options since he started eating and is wary of trying new things. I keep hoping that as he gets older he will be more willing to try new things.

Feeding kids is a challenge between trying to make sure they eat balanced meals, get enough protein, have healthy snacks, but still foods they like. It is always rewarding to see them try something new and like it.

Filed Under: Jackson, parenting, William Tagged With: healthy eating Leave a Comment

Reward Chart

Mar 08 2011

Our house has implemented a new reward system. (Not just for the dog, but Jack too.) I was looking for a motivational tool for Jack to offset my loud yelling voice. I was tired of having to get to the escalation point (and my series of colds has been hard on my voice too) and Jack wasn’t hearing me anymore. So now we have a reward chart.

Jack can earn “X”s throughout the day by completing his chores and behaving well. If he doesn’t talk back or complain, plays well with his brother and completes his tasks without me having to be on him then he gets an “X”. His chores are feeding the dog, making his bed (he is still not remembering this one,) setting the table and taking out the recycling.

Once he has 10 “X”s he gets a quarter (he has the opportunity to 10 stars a day and I didn’t want to break the mommy bank) and after he fills up a full page he gets an extra dollar. We are trying to start teaching him about money management too. He always says that he wants a toy or movie and asks for them, so we want him to save for items and learn the value of money.

He is responsible for marking the “X”s when he completes a chore or when we tell him he gets an “X.” So far it seems to be helping. We still have moments, but who doesn’t.

Now if I could only get Will on the same page. But unfortunately following directions is not his strong suit. Get ready we are entering the terrible twos, but that is for another post.

Filed Under: Jackson, parenting Tagged With: behavior, money, reward chart 1 Comment

To cozy and other family words

Feb 21 2011

If your family is anything like mine you have created your own family words or terms for things. I am not just talking about words for private parts or bathroom acts, (you know what I am talking about, who who or pee pee) but words for normal activities or items. Sometimes these may be intentional, but probably most of the time they are cute little happy accidents.

I think our first one actually came about before Jack was born. At my Grandparent’s house, soon after we were married, I showed him a scrapbook that my Granny made about my first trip to Idaho with them when I was 4. (Granny loved to make scrapbooks, it is to bad she couldn’t be apart of all that they have become now.) In the book it talks about how on our drive home we parked the trailer next to our friends and were “cozy-warm” next to each other.

That morphed into the term “cozy”, which is actually a verb, meaning to cozy. It became our word for cuddling (not that type of cuddling you dirty people.) Once Jack was here we used to to mean cuddle time, either in the morning, after nap time or whenever he just needed a cozy. He still comes up to us and asks to cozy.

The other day I was sitting on the sofa reading a magazine and watching TV and Will walked up to me and said “cozy.” Then started to crawl up on the sofa next to me. My heart just melted, now he knows it too. He sat with me for a few minutes, then got to wiggly and moved on.

That got me thinking about the other terms we use…

Like “feel-better”. That is our term for Neosporin (or other antibiotic ointment.) Jack coined this term, because I used to say lets go put something on it make it feel better when he would scrape or cut himself. Now he knows the real term, but I still like to use feel-better. Will knows when I pull the tube out that it goes on his check, since he is always marking up his little face.

Also “little hands.” I don’t know exactly how this started, but this is what Jack calls Purell or hand sanitizer. We would use it all the time when we couldn’t wash hands, especially when I was getting his tube feedings going.

Then there is “snooze.” Jack started using this term for his nap when he was around 2. I must have said it, but don’t remember exactly (babies fry your brain, it must be from all the heat and hormones during pregnancy.) Will and I now sing the Snooze Song before nap everyday. If I haven’t started it he will start singing on the changing table.

Do any of you have cute funny little terms you use?

Filed Under: family, Jackson, parenting, William Tagged With: family words Leave a Comment

Stress free holidays

Nov 18 2010

Ready or not here come the holidays. For us the holiday gauntlet begins Friday when we leave for our Thanksgiving trip through family in California. Normally we would be driving and taking the pooch with us, but this year we have opted to fly, so she will be staying home.

As the holidays begin I am determined to do it differently this year. The last few years I have gotten so caught up in the stress and craziness that I haven’t enjoyed them like I should. We have young kids, who love Santa and Christmas lights, want to make cookies and gingerbread houses, decorate the house with paper snowflakes and watch out the window for real snow. It will not always be that way.

So this year I am going to enjoy the holidays. I am going to try to see Christmas through Will’s eyes, like everything is new. If things don’t work like I want them too (like our holiday open house getting snowed out again) I am going to try to let it go. Last year I was exhausted after the holidays and sad that it was gone and I hadn’t enjoyed it.

This summer I made a decision that I needed to learn how to let go and enjoy more. Somehow I have become a complete control freak and the family tour guide, so I am always organizing and not enjoying. Everyone get ready for delegation and not perfection, simplicity and not elaborate.

I want to spend Thanksgiving being thankful for my family and our health, playing games and enjoying a yummy dinner that I didn’t have to spend all day in the kitchen to make. I want to spend Christmas enjoying the gifts from Santa and watching the boys play, maybe in the snow (please, please!) eat a good meal with friends and family that didn’t take us all day to make.

This is my goal for the next 6 weeks, enjoy the simple good things, see the holidays through the eyes of a child and let the stress go. I wish the same for you.

Filed Under: family, parenting Tagged With: holidays 1 Comment

A Mompreneur’s Chronicle Of Life With Her Boys