Wordless Wednesday

First Wedding

My cousin and her long time boyfriend got married a few weeks ago and we all made the trip to Pennsylvania to celebrate with them and to see my dad's side of the family. This was LB's first wedding. However, he didn't actually go to the ceremony because it was right during his nap time and we figured it might be risky to bring a very active two year old boy to a Catholic wedding ceremony. I would make that decision over again in a heartbeat! Even though traveling with a two year old isn't always easy, I am so glad we went and overall LB did really well.

Highlight #1
(These are not in order of importance.)

LB got to ride in an airplane with his Grandma and Poppy. My parents drove to Columbus a few days before we had to leave and then we all flew together. LB loves airplanes. He talks all the time about how they "go running fast" and "go up up high and down down." He asks to go to the airport all the time. If there were no airplanes at our gate's window then my dad or D graciously took him to find other ones.

Highlight #2

I made friends with an Ethiopian woman working at the Starbucks at the Columbus airport. We even exchanged numbers and she invited us to a picnic event at the Ethiopian Orthodox church in town. She picked up LB and gave him kisses. He didn't seem to mind and then she gave him a free scone. Love.

Highlight #3

Aunt Bebe met us there and LB ran to her arms when we saw her at the airport. We kept telling him she would be there but I am not sure he believed it until it actually happened. Aunt Bebe is way fun and does stuff like somersaults on the hotel bed. I think for kids jumping on the hotel bed is a travel requirement. It's like it is embedded in their DNA. Aunt Bebe and LB certainly have a special bond.

Highlight #4

The morning of the wedding we had a little time to kill so my dad took us to the park where he spent a lot of his youth. My dad doesn't walk down memory lane all that often so it was fun to hear his stories of playing baseball with all his childhood friends. We also got to see the outside of the two homes where he grew up. LB had a good time except for one moment which will be mentioned next as the major low point of the trip.

Low Point

If you have ever been around LB in person then you know one of his many talents is an ear piercing scream. We've always said that when he is mad or upset about something then everyone within in a few blocks is aware of it. There is no halfway with him. Well, it turns out this statement was not an exaggeration. If memory serves the incident began right as this photo was being taken.

Do you see the little tube leading to the slide? Well, LB sort of got stuck in there. He tends to get a little claustrophobic and then can't decide which direction he wants to go. He clearly got disoriented and wanted nothing to do with that tube. So he did what he typically does in those situations. He screamed. My mom tried to get him out but I think in the end D had to reach in and pull him out and was able to calm him down. Situation over, right? No. The screaming was so loud that some cops showed up to make sure everything was okay. I have no idea where they were but soon after the screaming ended they pulled in the lot and we assured them everyone was alive and not being tortured. Awesome. By far, one of my most embarrassing moments as a parent. I am trying really hard to laugh about it. 

Highlight #5

Even though LB didn't make it to the actual ceremony (D stayed back at the hotel with him) he did go to the reception and basically stayed until the end. He typically goes to bed around 7:30pm but I think we eventually pulled him off the dance floor close to 10pm. He was very good during the cocktail hour and actually ate some food despite all the distractions. And he sat at our table through the meal and speeches. D may have taken him out to the garden once or twice but overall he was in a great mood. Once the dancing started LB's mood went from good to incredibly awesome. He was hysterical. He danced the night away and it was like he was possessed by the music. All of my cousin's friends were dancing with him and essentially formed a line around him so they could watch and dance with him. The photographers must have snapped a million photos of him. I was so wrapped up in the moment that I didn't take any pictures but thankfully my sister did.

The last photo cracks me up. It's possible that I slightly resemble my mother. I am kicking myself for not taking any video of LB but I was just so happy to see him leading the charge on the dance floor. 

Highlight #6

At one point the DJ did an anniversary dance and had all the married couples come to the dance floor. The idea was to determine which couple had been married the longest. The dance floor got more and more sparse and eventually my parents were the only ones left dancing. They will have been married 40 years this August. It was a fun moment for our family to see them celebrated. 

My cousin and her husband had been together for 100 months on the day they got married! I am so glad we got to be there to see them, as the priest said, "give their love freely to one another."

Mommy Face

LB says this is his "Mommy face." Something tells me that it isn't a compliment.

LB Lately

Here are a few of my favorite LB photos as of late.

LB and his cousin, M, are becoming really good friends. This hand holding was not prompted. 

Entertaining himself (and us) in the car on the way to Yellow Springs.

Enjoying music in the park on a Sunday night. LB is still learning proper shoulder riding etiquette.

LB almost always has a ball. He is obsessed.

LB loved the Memorial Day parade this year. Last year it was too noisy for him but this year he couldn't get enough of the marching bands and has been really into drums ever since.

Playing in the sprinkler on a hot day. He is usually more interested in exploring the various mechanisms of the sprinkler rather than running through the water.

Watching "Thomas choo choo" with two of his best buddies.

LB and I were playing outside one afternoon and it started to sprinkle. He decided he would watch the rain from the garage and made himself comfortable. Bunny watched as well.

Sigh. I love that face.

Discipline Post #124

I feel like I write about discipline too much. But I think a lot about it and it has been such an evolving process for us in finding out what works and what doesn't. I didn't expect this pre-parenting. LB is a great kid and a lot of his sensory issues that used to make going out more complicated are vastly improved! Things that would been melt down inducing last year are turning into great experiences this year. I'm so grateful! But the fact is that LB is a two year old so it makes sense that a lot of what we have to focus on during this stage is modeling good behavior and putting in place appropriate consequences for not so good behavior. I cannot express enough how much better things have been since we eliminated time out. I have to say that it has also been really good for D and me. One of the biggest things we tend to argue about is discipline and time out was no exception. Did the behavior justify a time-out? How long should he be in time-out? How do we get him to sit in one spot? It just seemed we were never in sync with time out. Honestly, discipline methods have been a hot button issue for us the past year or so. I have always felt like D and I make a good team. We rarely argue about a lot of the typical stuff that couples tend to clash about like money, careers, housework, the toilet seat, etc. But this discipline thing really threw us for a loop and I really dislike feeling like we are on opposing teams. Since I am home with LB all day, I will sometimes develop a method for handling a bad behavior and then there isn't always time to communicate that to D and he will come home and do something differently and then we aren't being consistent and them I am annoyed and he is annoyed and now this sentence is a major run on but you get the idea. Exhausting! Implementing and modifying the techniques in "Love & Logic" along with suggestions from "The Connected Child" have worked miracles! It's like this weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Of course, D and I are not perfect and it's unrealistic to think that we will see eye to eye 100% of the time but the change is palpable.

Here's what's been working.

I talked about this in my last post on discipline but saying "bye bye" to toys is awesome. It works so well for LB. Basically whenever he does something he isn't supposed to like throw, hit or scream then a toy goes on top of the fridge. If he throws a toy then obviously that toy goes away. If he didn't throw something in anger but just in carelessness then we ask him to "try again" and put the toy away in the bin or to hand it to one of us gently. Then he gets lots of praise when he tries again correctly. If he is screaming about something then we usually put one of his beloved stuffed animals or a ball (his major obsession) up on the fridge. The first couple of times it was ugly and he cried and screamed a lot but now that he knows what will happen he is better about correcting the behavior. (Of course, we still have moments when he gets really mad about a toy going bye bye but it all depends on the situation.) The toy has to stay up there a while and then we ceremoniously bring it down and congratulate him on his good behavior. I also ask him why the toy went bye bye. He always tells me correctly and yesterday he added that the toy will go bye bye again if he screams. Yes! A few days ago, D came home from work and he picked up LB. LB noticed his bunny up on the fridge and pointed to it. D asked him why it was up on the fridge and LB said in sad voice, "screams. no screams." He gets it and has internalized it. We had a funny incident with that bunny recently. LB was doing something, probably screaming, and I asked him to stop and he did not. So I said to him, "Okay it sounds like bunny needs to go bye bye." I reached out my arm to get bunny and he handed it to me and said "thank you" in a voice like I was doing him a favor. Ha! And then he was fine and went about playing happily. I really wanted to laugh but forced myself to keep a straight face. There are times when he will try and negotiate what toy goes on the fridge but I always tell him that I get to choose. He will sometimes randomly remember about a toy that went "bye bye" and will tell me about it. I really think he gets it and that it is motivation for him to not scream, hit or throw. He's been doing better in all those areas.

We also do a lot of counting. LB learned to count to ten a few months ago and he loves doing it. For example, if he's playing and doesn't want to come to the table to eat dinner then we'll say, "Okay, we are going to count to ten and then it's time to eat." About 8 times out of 10 that works and he makes the transition. As I mentioned above, LB is honing his negotiation skills and he'll often request that we "count ten" if he wants to do something a little longer. I almost always comply because who cares if he does something for ten more seconds. If all it takes is ten seconds to avoid a tantrum then I am all for it! He also requests to do things "one more time." The other night it was time to stop playing and read books before bed. LB wanted to keep shooting hoops so D told him "two more times." LB's negotiation back was, "one week?" He's a tough customer! LB is definitely starting in on the pre-bed stalling tactics.

I remember from our pre-adoption videos that Dr. Purvis was big on using eye contact. D must have really internalized that advice because he has always been better about asking LB to "look at my eyes" before asking him to try again or talking about better behavior. I forget that step sometimes but have been working on it. At first, LB would really try and avoid the eye contact when it had to with discipline. Other wise he is great about eye contact. But I have noticed that he is now much better at looking at me. I think it makes a difference. Dr. Purvis also talked about setting expectations ahead of time as much as possible. Last week we had a scheduled play date so I talked to LB before our friends came over about how his friend would probably want to play with his trucks and that we were going to share. I told him we might take his wagon to the park and that he would need to share his wagon. At first, he gave me a look of disapproval about sharing the wagon but we talked about how it would be fun and that they would each have a seat. When they came over LB went straight to his trucks and handed one to his friend. He also shared the wagon without any protest. I have to think it is because we talked about it and I reassured him he would get them all back. We do this when we are going to the park too. LB loves to bring balls to the park and we always talk about how we will share the ball with other kids. He has been really compliant and actually enjoys kicking or throwing the ball back and forth with another kid.

The other thing that I find to be really hard about discipline is follow through. When D was off work a few weeks ago we explored a new park. LB really loved it because they have sand and a huge green area to just run to his heart's content. At one point he went to get in line to go down the slide. He and another boy got there at about the same time but the boy was a little more aggressive about getting in front. LB screamed really loudly at the kid. I pulled LB aside and told him not to scream and if he screamed again we were leaving. Well, he screamed again just a few minutes later. So I picked him up and we headed to the car. He was crying and kicking and trying to get out of my arms but I stood my ground and told him we were leaving. He cried for the first couple minutes of the car ride and we just kept saying over and over that it was really sad that we had to leave because of screams. He finally quieted down and sat there silently for a few minutes. Then he said, without prompting, "sorry mommy," in a really sweet voice. I loved that he said sorry on his own. The next week I told him we were going to meet friends at the new park with the sand. He looked at me for a minute and then said, "no screams." WOW!!! Clearly, it made an impression. I was thrilled. And he did great and had fun. So did I.

See ya time-out. I am putting you on the top of the fridge and will not miss you at all!

Swim Lessons

LB and I did the winter and spring sessions of swim lessons at a nearby community center. Their pool is amazing and is perfect for little ones because it is zero entry. Honestly, I was always exhausted afterwards but it was worth it. (And it meant I had to shave my legs all winter. A major con but again it goes to show what a mom will do for her son.) I basically grew up at the pool and I want LB to love the water as well. He is naturally a cautious kid and I knew it would take some time for him to feel comfortable playing without being in my arms. We went swimming once last summer and he really loved it but either D or I were holding him the whole time. Towards the end of the winter session he started to get more and more brave and would walk into the pool on his own and would stand on the edge and try and jump in to me. The teacher was great and LB still talks about him even though we haven't been in a few weeks. It is also worth mentioning that I was so excited when we showed up the first day and learned that LB's teacher was African American. It's interesting all the little things that I notice now that I probably wouldn't have if we had a biological child. Since all the other kids in his class were white it was nice that the teacher looked like LB.

The last class of the spring session happened to be the week that D was off work. I was so glad that he got the chance to see LB at his lesson. And it was nice because D was able to take some pictures. My mom was actually in town for LB's first class so luckily we have documentation of his first and last class of the season. The teacher used all these great toys as encouragement to get the kids to reach deeper in the water and possibly get their face under. We actually had a little incident midway through the spring session when LB's face went under unexpectedly and it really scared him. It scared me too for about the 2 seconds it took for me to realize he was okay. He coughed a lot on the water and that really freaked him out. Needless to say it took a few weeks for him to regain his confidence. But I think in those situations I am glad he isn't fearless because it does probably keep him safer.

I think D got some great shots of LB in action.

I love the expressions on his face and it is clear that he is proud of himself and having a good time. At the end of class the teacher would turn on the fountains and the kids could splash around and go down the slides. I was really proud of LB because at the last class he told me he wanted to go down the big slide. It is like one of the twisty slides at water parks. We did it on the last class of the winter session because his little girlfriend was doing it so he wanted to follow along. We got to the top and he was a little surprised at what he had gotten himself in to. We did it and he didn't cry but he definitely didn't want to do it again. But he caught me off guard when he told me at the most recent class that he wanted to do it again. I am not sure if he wanted to show off for D or what. But we did it and D took a little video and LB loves watching it over and over. It doesn't get much better than watching your kid overcome a fear!

Sunday Snapshot