LB's First Reward Chart

We've had some tough evenings around these parts. Lots of tears. Not just from LB. When LB turned 2 1/2 he became more of a challenge to put down at night. He started with some stalling and we had some unpleasant evenings. But it would happen for a night or two and then it would get better. And the stalling was mostly limited to "one more hug" or "a little more milk" or "come look at this really big boogie." It dragged out bedtime but it was doable. Well, around his 3rd birthday we had night after night of insane amounts of stalling and then big tantrums when we tried to limit the stalling. I am not a fan of the 'cry it out method' but it felt like he would never go to sleep if we gave in to all his requests. He's also the type of personality that if you do something once then be prepared to always have to do it. He doesn't forget. Anything. There were a few times when I would offer to sit next to his bed to see if he just needed some extra comfort. It may have helped prevent crying and screaming but I felt like my presence served as added stimulation and he would attempt to engage me in conversation. It just seemed to drag it out even more. I sent out some cries for help to a few experienced mama friends and two of them suggested sticker charts with the promise of a reward. I figured it was worth a try. His bed time antics were exhausting me!

Since this was the first time I had introduced a reward system to LB, I wanted to make the chart very visual so there would be no mistaking the intent. Since I am not an artist, I went online and found a photo of a crib that looks like his and a picture of some presents. I put a bunch of smiley face stickers around the bed to symbolize being happy in bed. I gave a lot of thought to how many stickers he would need to earn to get his reward. In the end, we decided 3 stickers was the perfect number. I could explain to him that he needed to earn 3 because he is 3 years old and it wouldn't take too long to earn so that he would stay motivated. So I wrote out the numbers and the plan would be cover the number with a sticker once he earned it.

Full disclosure #1: I showed the sticker chart to LB in the afternoon and explained that if he went to bed happy and calm for 3 nights then he would get a present. I told him no screaming and no throwing friends from his bed. I also explained I would still rub his back and rock him a little bit but when that was done it was time for bed. I thought I did a good job explaining the criteria. Well... he saw the pictures of the presents and wanted the presents "NOW!" It was not pretty. I was ready to throw in the towel and say forget it. Frustrating!!

However, I am always too quick to quit. So I put the chart on top of the fridge and after he had calmed a bit I distracted him and didn't bring it up again until bedtime. At bedtime, I simply told him that I wanted him to go to bed happy and with no screaming so that he could get a sticker in the morning. He did some stalling and D and I had to go up to tend to his "one more" requests a few times but then there was silence. It was glorious. The next 2 nights were even better. I finished rocking him and then reminded him I wanted him to get a sticker in the morning and I walked out of the room. Silence. Ahhhh. So wonderful. I could put him to bed and exhale. It was a treat!

Full Disclosure #2: After he earned his first sticker he also wanted a present "NOW!" But again, I just put the chart out of sight and then didn't bring it up again until later.

So as you can see it wasn't totally perfect but it DID get us to our goal. He earned his present yesterday morning and we started up again last night. He resisted bed time a bit at first but in the end he pulled himself together and fell asleep calm and collected. That's really what it is all about.

Doesn't he look proud? I was proud too. Yay for behavior modification! We're thinking of going ahead and switching him to his big boy bed with the hopes that the promise of a present will encourage him to stay and not wander. Any other tips for the big switch?

Hearts Matching Game

LB loves matching games. He's been obsessed with having two of things for a long time so it makes sense that he likes to find things that match. I got the idea to use conversation hearts to create a matching game from another website and now can't seem to find the original post. But it was a great success at our house! I told LB there was a holiday coming up called Valentine's Day and it's about celebrating the people we love. He didn't care and just wanted to play the matching game so I didn't worry about the significance of the hearts and just let the whole Valentine's theme go. Fine by me. Here is what you need:

Conversation Hearts
Markers to match the colors of the hearts
Piece of paper

This is what it looked like before I showed it to LB.

I tried to put a lot of a two of the colors and then just a few of the colors so that later on in the game we could count them and some would be easier than others. 

I demonstrated with two of the hearts and then he was ready. As per usual, he was very organized about the whole thing. He started with the pink hearts and did all of those first. He kept telling me that orange was his favorite color and the pink ones were "kind of like orange." I think that is why he was obsessed with those because he decided they were orange since I failed and didn't provide orange hearts. While he was doing the orange-pink ones he instructed me to do the yellow ones because "yellow is Mommy's favorite color." It isn't. But I played along, of course. He wanted Meemaw to do the green ones because "green is her favorite color" but, sadly, she wasn't there to play. It's interesting that he accurately knows Meemaw's favorite color but not Mommy's. Sigh.

Have I mentioned how much I love his 'hard at work' face? I have a million times? Well, I love it. 

He was plugging along and then exclaimed, "Mommy! My need my black magnify!" I have no idea what made him think of his magnifying glass but I wasn't going to argue. He started examining each color under the magnifying glass. I thought it was pretty brillant.

He's so serious. He looks like a legit scientist. I guess he is. 

After we matched them all up, I had him count the number of each color. He only made it through two colors and then decided he wanted to match again. So we did. Then the next morning during breakfast he asked to "play hearts" again. So we did. That time it expanded into making letters and shapes with the hearts. It was mostly him instructing me on what to make but that's fun too.

This game was a winner. If you have a toddler, then I highly recommend it.

Picky Picky

I've written a lot about LB's food issues. If you have a child with oral motor delays or texture sensitivities with food then I have a section on the sidebar that links to all my posts about LB's feeding therapy. Sometimes I get frustrated that he is still so picky about food but he's come a long way and I shouldn't forget that. But I do get discouraged sometimes and feel like the food that he will eat is still so limited. I also worry that we've fallen into some bad habits when it comes to food and I am nervous about trying to break those bad habits.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Adoptive Families. They have a great magazine and their website is also extremely helpful. The email jumped out at me because the subject line was, "Love Me, Feed Me." Anything food related always peeks my interest. They were offering a free webinar that would be hosted by Dr. Katja Rowell who wrote the book, Love Me, Feed Me: The Adoptive Parent's Guide to Ending the Worry about Weight, Picky Eating, Power Struggles and More. As luck would have it, the webinar was scheduled during LB's typical nap time. I signed up right away.

I just listened to the webinar and am feeling partially like a total failure but also inspired to do a better job. I think my tendency is that I listen to webinars or read articles like this and I get overwhelmed by all the things that I feel like I need to do to improve as a parent. But as I've had a little time to digest the words (no pun intended) and suggestions that I heard I am feeling empowered to try and make a few small changes. I think and hope that trying to make a few small changes and doing them one at a time will set us up for success. My reaction in the past has been to want to make sweeping changes all at once and that always backfires, whether its food or discipline or whatever. But I have come up with two goals for myself when it comes to food and LB.

Goal #1: Offer more foods. It's okay if he doesn't eat them. Offer them anyway with no pressure.

Goal #2: Try and steer away from food grazing. Structure snack time.

Here are my notes and commentary from the webinar and hopefully I can expand a bit on my goals.

Obviously, I was listening more intently when she was discussing picky eaters or small eaters but I think a lot of her advice applies to kids who have food hoarding issues as well. At the beginning, she said there was one main takeaway from the webinar that we should all remember. It is actually pretty enlightening.

Parent's Jobs:
What/When/Where

Child's Job:
How much from what you provide

She said any kind of pushing or pressure will aways backfire whether you are trying to get your kid to eat more or less. They will always do the opposite. Pushing them turns into a power struggle and then mealtimes become stressful and unpleasant. We have always fallen into the 'trying to get our kid to eat more' camp and any attempt at two more bites and then you can get down or anything like that has always backfired. Dr. Rowell suggests ending the 'two more bite' rule or the 'you have to eat x before y' rule. What this piece of advice has offered me as well is that I need to do a better job of offering foods that I know he will initially refuse. And that's okay. I always just make him things I know he will eat or we try and push him to try the things that we are eating. We just need to eat and offer it to him and show him that we are eating and let it be. But he's never going to start eating carrots if I don't put them on his plate. I still like making him smoothies and hiding things like spinach or fruit that he won't eat outside of a smoothie. To me that's different. I will continue with that because at the moment it is my main way of feeding him fruits and vegetables. But I need to offer them in their raw form as well. The other day we made baked sweet potatoes and then D and I loaded them up with salsa and ground turkey and cheese. (Yummy! Thanks Biggest Loser.) D offered his sweet potato to LB and kept asking, "do you want to try this?" LB refused. I am not singling out D. I do this too. What we need to do is give LB his scrambled eggs or pasta, also known as his safe foods, so that he eats but then also put some of the sweet potatoes out as an option. And let it be. Dr. Rowell suggests serving meals family style. My understanding of family style is you put all the offerings in big bowls and then pass them around and everyone gets to choose their share. I like that idea. I think it will be helpful for us when LB is a little older. I am going to tuck that piece of advice away for now. She advises parents to steer away from bribes, threats and rewards when it comes to food. She says to do your job of providing the food and then be pleasant and good company at the table. Then let your child choose the amount. I think we do a good job of giving him his food and then trying to engage him about his day or sing goofy songs as a way to help him enjoy sitting at the dinner table with us. But I will say it again, I must offer him more variety!

Structure is Critical!
I think when it comes to the three main meals we have done a good job of this. LB has breakfast whenever he wakes up, usually around 6:30am. We have lunch around 11:30am and dinner around 5:30pm. We are pretty good about keeping to this schedule. Dr. Rowell says younger kids should be offered food every 2-3 hours. I usually offer LB a mid-morning snack and a post nap snack. BUT I am also really bad about letting him graze. I tend to graze a lot myself and don't eat big meals and I've let LB fall into this routine as well. I also think it is part of our worry that LB doesn't eat enough and that he is small. So we've always taken the stance that if he wants food we will give it to him. But I am going to try and steer him away from that and instead offer filling snacks that will curb his desire to graze. She said that it takes time to tune into hungry cues and full cues so offering this structure with snacks will hopefully help that. Dr. Rowell actually said there are studies that show children will grow less if they are nibbling all day. Ack!

Here is my stress though when it comes to grazing. LB is a slow eater and I know it is a result of his oral motor delays. I have watched other kids LB's age eat at the same time and they all take 4 - 5 bites to every one bite LB takes. He is more deliberate in his chewing and takes smaller bites in general. He will eat a bowl of pasta or a bowl of beans and rice but if we ask him to eat all of it at the table then he'll have to sit there for 45 minutes in order to finish. He isn't stalling (like he does at bed time). He's just slow. Usually he'll sit at the table for about 20 minutes and then ask to get down. Personally, I think that is reasonable for a 3 year old. Most kids his age would be able to finish the serving in that amount of time. But LB gets down and plays and comes back to the table and gets more bites. As I was listening to the webinar, I was feeling guilty about that. But I'm letting that guilt go. He decides when he's done and doesn't ask for more food before bed. I'm okay with that.

Here are some other random notes I wrote down:

*Take away the allure of forbidden food. Put the food out. She even suggests serving dessert with the meal. They don't get seconds of the dessert but it is out as option. She discusses this strategy more in her book. I didn't pay a ton of attention because, thankfully, LB isn't really into sweets.

*If your child struggles with transitions, then create an end of meal ritual. Ex: Have a candle lit at the table and when the meal is done have the child blow it out. Or pass around a warm washcloth to wipe hands at the end of the meal.

*A lot of times a child doesn't want meal time to end not because they are still hungry but because that means they lose the attention of the parents. If both parents go to clean up mode after the meal then the child is on their own. Reduce that stress by all playing a game together right after the meal and then transition to clean up. Or have one parent clean up and the other gives the child undivided attention.

*Involve older children in meal planning to help aid in always having food at the table they will want to eat.

As soon as the call was over, I went to my library's website to put Dr. Rowell's book on reserve. Sadly, they didn't have it. So I decided to go ahead and order it from Amazon because I found her to be so helpful on the webinar. I did find a DVD at our library called, "Kids and Family Food Issues," and it's hosted by Dr. Rowell. Needless to say, I put that on reserve and am eager to get it.

He sure is happy about eggs. Maybe 2013 will be the year he expands his diet? Or not.

I'll keep you posted. 

Art with LB

I thought I would continue with the theme of art. I've never been a crafty person. I don't paint. I can't sew. I am not a photographer. However, I was raised by two people who taught me to appreciate art and that includes not just paintings but sculpture, pottery, photography, etc. This is something I hope to pass on to LB. My mom minored in art history in college and is currently a docent at one of the museums in my hometown. My dad knows a lot about art as does my sister. As a kid I was never quite up to their level of knowledge or appreciation. I remember that my parents would take us to special exhibits at our local museums and a visit to a museum was often on the itinerary when we are on family vacation. When your parents are educators then it's a given that there is always an opportunity to learn something new no matter where you are. I have memories of sitting on those benches in the middle of the room at a museum and feeling impatient (and often cold) while the rest of my family really looked over each piece. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate it but I just didn't have the interest to spend a lot of time studying each painting. I was ready to move on. I'm proud to say that as I aged and matured I spent less time sitting on the benches and learned to enjoy the peacefulness and pleasure that comes from strolling through a museum or gallery.

I don't remember how old I was but I have a very clear memory of going to a Thomas Moran exhibit with my family that contained mostly his paintings of the West. We opted not to get those headphones that tell you about each piece because my dad was able to tell us a lot about the exhibit (and maybe my parents were saving a few bucks to pay for my ice skating lessons). I was standing next to my dad and I think we were looking at a painting of the Grand Canyon and my dad asked, "Do you see that horse there in the distance?" I didn't at first but then was able to see it when my dad pointed it out. He told me that Moran often would paint animals or people into his work and they would be small and hard to see as a way to convey how big our world is and how small we are in relation to nature. I'm pretty sure that was the first time something clicked inside of me and turned art into more than just paintings on the wall. I saw what the artist was trying to convey and I understood it. I finally gained some confidence in the world of the arts.

I took an art history class in college and I don't think I skipped a single class. Not that I skipped a lot but the point is that I enjoyed it. There was something relaxing about having the lights go dim and listening to the click of the slide projector as the professor went through each piece. In 2000, I went to Europe with a friend and we spent a lot of time wandering through various museums and it was fun. I don't think I sat on a single bench. I remember that I bought a print from the gift shop at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and I was excited to hang it in my future apartment. I still have that print and it's one of my favorites.

Even though I specialize in stick figures when it comes to creating art, I've tried to find a way to include include art projects in to my regular repertoire of activities with LB. I have found some great websites that suggest all sorts of fun art projects for toddlers and I just copy their ideas. Two of my favorites are No Time for Flash Cards and Play Create Explore. D's parents got LB a bunch of craft supplies for Christmas and we've been having a lot of fun with them.

I have to work hard at not trying to direct LB too much but to simply present him with the materials and let his own imagination take over. Some days he'll get into whatever it is we are doing and other days he makes a few marks on the paper with a colored pencil and then decides to be "all done coloring." I try to roll with it. A few weeks ago, I set up his easel in the unfinished part of our basement and let him do some watercolors. He did it for a while but he spent half the time putting the brush in the water and then getting some paint on the brush and then putting it back in the water to watch it change color. He kept asking for "more new water." My initial reaction was to be annoyed he was just messing with the water but I reminded myself he was exploring and discovering and that there was value to it.

When my mom was here last week she taught him how to make a collage. He loved ripping the paper and then using his glue to put it on paper. We've done this several times since and he hasn't tired of it.

This winter I got a membership to our city's conservatory. You wouldn't think it would be a place that could entertain a three year old but LB loves it. He can walk around freely and there is all sorts of stuff to look at and explore. In the spring they have a butterfly exhibit. In the room with the butterflies they have a Chihuly sculpture on permanent display. Even though LB has seen it several times, whenever we turn the corner and can see it he always says, "Wow!" I love it. There is such a sense of wonder in his voice.

Fingers crossed that he never loses the "wow" and stays off the cold benches.

Ethiopian Art

I remember before we brought LB home I was at the house of a fellow Ethiopia adoptive mom. Several of us were gathered there for a shower for a mom who was about to travel to Ethiopia to adopt her son. The hostess's daughter was there and she was about 3 or 4 years old at the time. We were sitting at the dinner table chatting. Her mom had an Ethiopian flag hanging in the window as part of the decorations for the shower. I'll never forget how her daughter pointed at the flag and said proudly, "That's the Ethiopian flag. I was born in Ethiopia." It was very matter of fact but also, like I said, filled with some pride. At that moment, I made a mental note to myself that I wanted my future child to have that knowledge of his/her birth country from a young age. I wasn't exactly sure how I would go about achieving that goal but I knew it would be important.

I'm happy to say that LB knows he was born in Ethiopia, he can identify it on a world map and he can recognize the Ethiopian flag. He knows the shape of Africa very well and often sees it in things that I don't. A few weeks ago I had a "boo boo" on my ankle and LB told me it was "like Africa." I never would have thought that but he was right. When LB is playing with his airplanes they are either flying to Tulsa or Ethiopia. (Which destination would you choose?) I think we've accomplished this in part by the things that we purchased in Ethiopia to display in our home. I never would have thought that art would be one of the main ways that I helped LB learn about his birth country but I'm pleasantly surprised that it worked out that way.

When I think back to our first trip to Ethiopia I remember very clearly the day that D and I set out to buy a piece of art for our home. We told our driver we wanted to buy a painting and I think he had a lot of fun touring us around to various galleries and he was very in the know about some of the more obscure places. We wanted something that would remind us of our time there. After visiting a handful of places we landed on buying something from one of the more well known art galleries in Addis. I would have loved to buy something from one of the lesser known artists but we had to go with our favorite piece.

The artist's name is Abraham and we love it. The painting is stretched on canvas and is in our living room. Every time I look at it I think about being in Addis and the craziness of all the cars and the blue taxis that were all over the place, or the "blue devils" as our driver called them. When we were in Addis we also bought a lot of table linens, scarves and jewelry. I wish we had bought more. I think we were pinching our pennies a bit because we had just spent so much to travel to Ethiopia but we should have thought more long term and just gone for it. How often do you get to go to Ethiopia?

Thankfully, we've attended a silent auction the past two years that benefits Ethiopian Orphan Relief and both years they've had several items from Ethiopia as part of the auction. I made it a point to bid on them and we lucked out and won a few. One of the baskets we won and an Ethiopian drum are on our sofa table in the living room. LB plays with the drum and knows the basket is from Ethiopia as well. (Let's forget that he often pretends the basket is a sweeper and pushes it around the house.) 

It makes me happy that we've incorporated these items into our home and they are just a part of the scenery. 

My goal for 2013 is to do a better job incorporating Ethiopian holidays into our lives. We need some traditions and I'm open to advice.