(And All My) Work Be Praise

I have been trying for three weeks to get Silas to do this rectangle activity. Usually the glue stick is one of those coveted items that gets him excited about a craft, but he is dead set against it. So, in the name of authenticity, I'm going to stop hoping the craft will happen and just show you real life instead! The goal: glue some black rectangles onto a larger rectangle. (Silas is standing next to me right now shouting, "I DIDN'T glue, Mommy! I didn't!") I even flipped the paper over and tried to get him to glue anything anywhere. No dice. Today, he chose to eat leftover oatmeal instead. I don't even know how his bowl got from the counter to the little table. He did, however, spend time each day I tried putting the cap on the glue and taking it off again, which is a great fine motor skill. And right this second, he's in the kitchen picking up all of the black rectangles he threw all over the floor in his rage, so we're p...

I found the boys like this (on Levi's bed) one afternoon while I was putting away clean laundry. Owen was reading a book about creation, so I started asking him the children's catechism questions: Me: Owen, who made you? Owen: God. Me: What else did God make? Owen: All fings! Me: Why did God make you and all things? Owen: Mmmmmm . . . because he wants to. How very two-year-old. Why else would anyone do anything?

A Very Hungry Caterpillar by Owen, age 23.5 months light moon little egg lay leaf next day -- POP! next day eat two pears next day -- Wen-day eat one staw-bry next day eat  . . . wowwi-pop . . .  . . . [points to cherry pie] that . . .  . . . CUPCAKE!

A long time ago -- maybe a year? nine months? -- Levi started telling us once or twice a week at dinner that his foot had fuzz on it. This was extremely upsetting to him: he'd whine, and cry a little, and brush at his foot frantically. We'd inspect the foot for fuzz, finding nothing, and try (unsuccessfully) to reassure him that there was no fuzz on his foot. After a few minutes, he'd settle down, and we'd wonder what on earth that was all about. Finally, much more recently -- a month or two ago -- instead of saying, "my foot has fuzz on it," he used the phrase, "my foot is fuzzy," and all of a sudden I understood. He'd been sitting on his foot, and it had fallen asleep! I don't normally associate the "pins and needles" feeling with "fuzziness," but if you have no idea what's going on and a limited number of adjectives at hand, I don't think "fuzzy" is so far off.  A toddler mystery decoded! Readin...

I write a lot about my firstborn, Levi.  It's not terribly surprising, I suppose.  Everything about his life is brand new for me; every accomplishment, development, difficulty is the first time I've encountered it in my short journey of motherhood. I certainly don't love my second-born any less, though (and, in fact, I secretly think he's even cuter at 18 months than Levi was)!  I love the way he grins and waves when our eyes meet.  I love how he stops whatever he's doing and says "woof" whenever he hears a dog outside.  I love his infectious giggle and his obsession with belly buttons (mine and his, mostly) and his willingness to ask for help (a trait his older brother does not possess). I have no idea what he's doing here, but I love this picture! Owen regularly asks me to blow on his food (by holding it out and blowing on it himself), whether it's hot or not, but hates to have the wind blowing his hair.  When he particularly enjoys a m...

A while ago, I blogged about the best mothering advice ever : Rachel Jankovic 's assertion that everything gets better in twenty minutes, if you simply do the work in front of you instead of complaining about it. Today, I remembered another little nugget that has kept me sane over the past year or so.  Most of the interaction I have with women is with mothers just a little ahead of the game: 5-10 years older than me, with kids up to twelve years old or so.  So when I chanced to be talking to an "older" woman, whose children are in their late teens and early twenties, I listened closely: her children are amazing, godly individuals.  Whatever she and her husband did, they did it right! At the time, Levi was about eighteen months old, and giving me quite the constant headache.  "Oh, yes," this woman nodded knowingly.  "Those half-years were always the hardest for me, from six months all the way up to 5-1/2 or so."  It seemed odd to me, but the piece o...

A quick, random thought: Levi is very much in a phase where he loves to hear or do the same thing over and over again. Especially when singing songs he likes, we often get the response, "you should sing it again" or something similar. I keep expecting to be irritated by the repetition, but I find I'm surprisingly not. On the contrary, it's such immediate confirmation that I'm doing something that brings him delight that I am delighted myself. You never have to wonder where you stand with a toddler: satisfying or dissatisfying, he'll let you know. At this stage of the game, I appreciate that!

Levi and I had one really bad day this week.  It was only half a day, really, but compared to our normally rather peaceful days, it was bad .  I know in my head that his defiant "NO, Mommy" and his refusal to obey on things I thought we'd conquered months ago and his naptime shenanigans are merely the combination of innocent toddler-hood and sinful human nature, but on this particular day, I was angry.  "How dare you wake up your brother" angry.   "You MUST obey"  through clenched teeth angry. When I realized that I was actually looking for reasons to punish  (not discipline) him rather harshly -- trying to enforce rules that hadn't been in place previously -- my oh-so-angry heart sank.  Make a quick mental list of all of the ways parents are NOT supposed to treat their children; I'd violated every one in the space of a few hours.  And in an instant, I knew what he'd needed all along: a little more attention, a little more patience, a who...

Jenny made Levi and Owen some adorable felt food for Christmas.  (I knew she was crafty -- you should've seen our room sophomore year, all decorated in construction paper -- but I had no idea she could sew!)  This was our first introduction to play kitchen items (beyond my handing the boys pots and pans and spoons in the real kitchen), so I wasn't quite sure what we'd do with it at first.  In fact, when Levi decided immediately upon opening that the eggs, bacon, grapes, and kiwi slices belonged on the Christmas tree, we left them there! But the tree came down this week, and when I remembered that I'd propped it up on a big Pampers box, I had a sudden brainstorm: cover it in brown paper and draw some burners on it!  And so that's precisely what I did.  It's not fancy, and it likely won't last long (particularly with the destructive nature of my second son), but I'm awfully proud of myself for being creative, recycling items I already had, and giving th...

It's been just over five months since I announced  that Levi (22 months old at that point) was saying about half a dozen words.  As was to be expected, his growing vocabulary picked up speed after that, but it really wasn't until about a month ago that we noticed dramatic increases in his verbal skills. The desire to communicate with (or, rather, to ) his little brother was a driving factor, I think: "Sit down, O-wo" was Levi's first full sentence.  After that we got "more milk please" and a number of other small requests.  The biggest breakthrough, though, was when he mastered, "May I have milk, please?"  It's a phrase he uses for everything, substituting verbs and direct objects to the best of his ability: "May I dip [get] down, please?"  "May I do ABCs, please?" (referring to typing on the computer ).  The ability to craft sentences is slowly making its way into his everyday speech; a few days ago, he spent a 10-min...

Yesterday evening I posted on Facebook "what a perfect day" I'd had.  I chuckled to myself when I thought of what that might have meant ten or even five years ago: sleep in late, graze on a sugar-filled breakfast, settle in for an all-day Anne of Green Gables  marathon or something of the sort, order in Chinese for dinner.  Such days are long gone, of course.  While it still sounds nice occasionally, the "perfect day" of this stage of life is much more satisfactory. 5am : Owen wakes up, but since he doesn't always go back to sleep if I nurse him at 5am, I decide to wait a while.  He's back to sleep within half an hour. 6:45am : Isaac's alarm goes off and he sleeps through it, so I nudge him out of bed. 7am : I shower and dress. 7:30am : I wake up Owen so that he will take a morning nap before we go out. 7:45am : Isaac leaves for work. 7:50am : Levi wakes up; I get him dressed. 8am : We feast on zucchini bread made the night before; the boys a...

I'm not sure that this is appropriate blog fodder, but since I figure the vast majority of my readers (all twelve of you) are moms (you know, except for my husband and maybe my dad occasionally), I might as well share my story. I've already mentioned a few times how Levi (now 25 months) is completely uninterested in -- nay, completely opposed to  -- using the potty.  We talk about it a fair bit, but his answer to "do you want to sit on the potty" is always, unequivocally, NO.  A few times this summer, I've taken him (and the potty chair) out on the back deck in the nude, hoping that he'd eventually let loose and I could at least say, "there!  That's what you will do in the potty some day."  I tell you what, this kid can hold it: no matter how long we stayed out, he came back in as full in bladder as he went out. A few days ago, Levi spotted some M&Ms in a Ziploc bag in the cupboard and proclaimed, "blueberries!"  (And to think I...

The best motherhood advice I've ever heard (at least, that is relevant to the two years and two children I've been mothering) came from Rachel Jankovic's book, Loving the Little Years .  (By the way, Jenae over at I Can Teach My Child is hosting a giveaway of this book through Friday, Sept. 9.   Hop on over and try to snag yourself a copy!)  Her little book is chock full of wisdom, but for super-practical me, this little gem topped them all: "If things started seeming really out of control, I would look at the clock and note the time. Then I would tell myself that in twenty minutes this would be over." (p. 43) Of course, she was writing this about having 2-year-old, a one-year-old, and twin babies, and my life is nowhere near that chaotic.  Her next paragraph goes on to say, "Twenty minutes is enough time (if you are moving quickly and not moping) to change three diapers and one complete outfit, spank one disobeyer, tuck two people into naps, and sit do...

Last week I had the rare opportunity to meet a long-time friend, bringing just Owen with me.  We gabbed non-stop for three hours as we wandered the rows of stores at the Jeffersonville outlet mall, sometimes several times each as we concentrated more on our chatting than on our direction!  It was truly refreshing, all of it: the beautiful day, the few bargains we found, the lack of a toddler around my knees, a friend who's known me longer than nearly anyone else I'm in contact with these days, freedom to discuss everything under the sun. As I mulled over our conversation on the drive home, I realized that several times throughout the morning, I'd made a big deal of the fact that I have sons rather than daughters.  It was always in conjunction with some sort of parenting challenge: potty-training and sitting quietly in church are the two that spring to mind, but I'm sure there were others. My initial reaction to this realization was to panic.   What if I'm using ...

Because Levi's birthday is in the summer, and because we have access to the church pool, I anticipate having all of his birthday parties at the pool, unless it's raining or until he can tell me he'd prefer something different.  Last year's party was fun for the grown-ups but not a huge success.  Too many people, too big of a pool, too cold to swim happily . . . just too overwhelming for my cautious first-born.  This year, everyone had a great time, including the honored guest!  I thought it was fun to compare pictures. Some things change: THE CAKE 1: Don't put me down!!                 2: Numbers!!!                    1: On the table, using fingers.            2. In a chair with a fork. THE PRESENTS                               1. Ducks are disturbing.     ...

Confession: I am terrified of having a two-year-old. It's not that I'm worried about the "terrible twos" or anything like that.  Levi's a pretty mild kid, and I have not yet felt undone by his occasional tantrums (yet . . . ).  There's a little bit of stomach-churning over the thought of potty training -- a few days ago he told me in vigorous nods/head-shakes that he never wants to sit on the potty like Mommy and Daddy and he wants to wear a diaper forever (not that he knows what "forever" means) -- but I'm even-keeled enough to recognize that someday he will, in fact, use the potty, and there's no reason to panic, or even to hurry.  I have no intention of rushing to a big-boy bed, either, so really there's not too much to be scary in the upcoming year. It just recently hit me, hard, that I am responsible for turning my children into responsible adults.  Now there's  a reason to panic, and maybe to hurry!  All of the self-doubt th...

I was super excited about Jenae's  idea to make this counting caterpillar , so when Isaac said he was headed out to get pool supplies for the youth group, I requested he bring home a foam noodle for me.  If you don't feel like clicking over to her site, she cut 11 small pieces off of the noodle, made one a caterpillar face, and numbered the rest 1-10.  String some rope through the middle, and you have lacing beads (great for motor development) and a counting game (put the pieces on the rope in order) all in one. While Levi loves numbers -- we're still using them to count out his bites at meal times, going all the way up to 9 multiple times now -- he really doesn't know them in order at all, so I thought this would be a fun way to practice.  Now, Jenae has a three-year-old and an 18-month-old, so this particular activity was designed for her older boy, but she also uses it just for the motor development with her younger son.  I figured, Levi's done so many sta...

A few weeks ago, I came across this idea  for making your own alphabet rug out of masking tape and thought it was just perfect for Levi.  Our sad little rug isn't nearly big enough for our living room, but it is just big enough for 26 letters and nine numbers taped around the edges!  Here's what we do with our rug: Place objects on letters based on the object's first letter (toys, those animal cards  I mentioned earlier , anything) The police car and school bus on their respective letters. Run to each letter in Levi's name Jump on L for Levi (etc) Hop on each number Walk the circle and sing the alphabet song As you can tell, most of those are actually gross motor activities, since that's what I feel Levi lacks (because, of course, that's what Mama least likes to do). (I used a Sharpie to draw the appropriate number of dots on each number.)

It's funny to me how milestones have changed with having children.  The "big things" used to be, you know, graduation(s), wedding, job, decade-birthdays (okay, that still counts), stuff like that.  But I feel like today was a "milestone day" in my house, and here's what happened: Levi indicated for the first time that he wanted to do something (hold the bubble bottle) by himself (without my asking if he wanted to). Owen held a sippy cup (jury's out as to whether he drank anything, but he definitely proved the spill-proof cap to be a lie). Levi was offered his first bite of hot dog (he declined, but still, it was something I'd put off until now). Owen moved from the Bumbo to a high chair for meals. Fun day.  :)

For those of you keeping score, Levi is now saying: Dad-dy (with a definite vocal stop between the two middle Ds, and he says it all day long), zebra, duck (though we can't tell if he's actually saying "duck" or "quack"), baby, car.  He has been heard to say, more than once but not regularly: blue, grandma, bye-bye.  And once in a blue moon, when he really wants something or when prompted, he does, finally, at last, say mama.