Climate change

posted by Kevin......

I will have everyone know that Minnesota is doing everything in it's power to fight Global Warming!

We are a leader in the use of wind energy, the development of cleaner alternative fuels, and have mandated huge reductions in green house gases state wide. And the results are clear!

Today when we got up it was -21F degrees. Yes, MINUS TWENTY ONE, or TWENTY ONE BELOW if you will. The wind chill was 40 below zero.

To put this in perspective, we have not seen a bird or squirrel all day. I believe it's possible that life has ceased to function on a molecular level in our yard.

My truck did not start this morning, which should not have been a shock. Yet, for some reason I was in denial. After all, if it would not start after four attempts, I'm positive letting it sit for another 2 minutes before trying four more times would produce miraculous results. Right?

I had to rush back indoors. I left Henry napping in his crib, and now I feared he had awoke, scaled the side of his crib, crawled out his room and down the hall. By now he would have the chain saw in the garage started up.

Stace had already left for work, her car having spent the night in the garage. So Henry and I were on our own. Cut off from the rest of the world except for a phone, TV, radio, and internet.

Actually, Henry and I listen to music most of the day while he scooted around on his butt. I discovered the perfect fleece outfit of his that, by the time Stace got home, had cleaned the entire upstairs hardwood floors like a Swiffer. Her first words through the door were, "Oh, you cleaned up!"

Saying no - part 2

posted by Stace
I am trying to achieve balance. I have decided that part of parenting is - obviously - picking battles. Do I really care that Henry wants to run his hands through the cat food and sprinkle it on himself? Is it causing any real damage?
Yes, I do very much care about electrical cords and my glasses, and ok, I despise the spitting - but am learning how to manage that without having to repeatedly say no.
But do I care about the fact that he likes to suck on Kev's shoelaces?
"Gross, gross, gross", I tell my son as I turn the page of my book and read on. It is totally gross and I wouldn't do it, but it would crush him if I moved the shoes, and let's be honest, he'll just go to the closet and pull them out again.
I'm practicing saying, "Whatever", and moving on.

Henry says, "do, do, do" and "dough, a-dough, dough", and I fear that it's him repeating us saying "no", which makes me wonder how often I say it to him. Again, yes, I totally know that it's important to say and god help me I am not one of those parents who is afraid to say no (I mean, really, we are talking about me here), or worried that he won't like me, or not fully aware of the fact that his parents get to make the decisions around here - but I want to make sure that he hears plenty of the positives as well. Yes, yes, yes, yes and Yea, yea, yea for Henry whenever he isn't engaging in those tantalizing terrifying horribly bad things he does.

So what if cat food is confetti? So what if he likes sucking on gross stuff? Yea for Henry. Yes, yes, yes.

Just keep your mitts off my glasses, you monster.

Saying No

posted by Stace
I wanted to be a parent who redirects, distracts, compromises - not the one who says "no" all the time. I knew that redirecting, distracting and compromising took time and energy. I also knew that compromising certainly isn't something one can do all of the time, and isn't something I can do with him at all yet. But what I didn't really think about is how easily "no, no, no, No, NO" pops out. And how often it pops out. And how critical it is to utter so often. Like when Henry is playing with an electrical cord or the cat food, or changes the radio station to country (which ok, I have stopped fighting that battle and embracing the twang), or when he sticks his hand in the vcr, or when he yanks all of the books off of the bookshelf (I have given up on that too) or when he spits food or grabs my glasses... (Oh and the remote!! It's a miracle if I can watch a program for 5 minutes without the channel switching to another we haven't purchased -what is it he wishes to view, I wonder - or some other program - and I have given up that battle as well - although he will let me have the remote briefly...) What I also didn't take into account is how often I have to pull my butt up to appropriately address the situation - IT'S EXHAUSTING - and I am not a lazy person.

So, I feel like all I say is no. And because I think this is unhelpful and irritating and not the parent I wanted to be, I am forcing myself to get up - again and again and again - to move the child away from the heater/cord/vcr/dvd/my face and glasses/radio or speakers/cat food and simply redirect. He has started going rigid and yowling for approximately 3 seconds, during and after which time I tickle and giggle with and play with my son as I inform him that I am truly sorry, but he can have nothing and always and forever have no fun ever and ever and ever and ever. Sorry. Too bad. Life sometimes sucks.

He finds this hysterical and seems to be adjusting quite well.