Child Inspired

Effective Discipline

2009-01-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

At least... what has worked for us.

Disciplining a child can be so hard, tiring, frustrating, and confusing. When do you use what type of discipline? What should you let slide? When do you raise your voice? How do you stop from laughing when your child has done something both wrong and totally humorous? :) I should start by saying that we are a no-spanking household. I have also read almost no books on the subject. The only book that I have read that even touched on discipline, but not really, is Raising You Spirited Child. I didn't even read all of that one, just touched on some of the topics I was interested in.

The number one mistake that I have seen other parents make with toddlers is that they overuse discipline. Especially time out. The reason that it is over used can boil down to one thing. Make sure you REALLY have their attention before making your demand and consequences clear. Many times they are watching TV, playing with a toy, or focused on something in the distance and we yell and assume since our voices are loud that they must hear us, understand, and choose to disobey. That is where we go wrong. Like a man watching a baseball or football game or when we are intently trying to solve a sudoku puzzle or crossword puzzle, we don't always hear anything else that is going on around us no matter how loud. Especially if we are yelling because we are in an already loud space so our yell is just more white noise. The thing I found that has been most effective to avoid having to discipline at all is that I ALWAYS make sure that Ari hears and understands what I am telling her before I issue punishment. I will literally get down on my knees at her level, grab her chin and turn her face to mine or pause her show or turn off her computer monitor if I need to to get her attention, then, once I see her looking at me and focusing on my face, I state what she is doing wrong and what the concequence will be if she does not do what I ask. This is KEY! Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, once Ari understands what is being asked of her and what will happen if she doesn't comply, she will comply.

Now the other side of that coin. Why does she comply? Because when she doesn't I ALWAYS follow through. ALWAYS! Do not say anything absolute, as a parent, unless you mean it. Sometimes I have to say, "You are not doing anything else until you get dressed." I used to say something like, "You won't do anything else until you put this on." That, I have learned, was a mistake. The reason being that the first statement gets me what I want (her dressed) but allows me to teach her about compromise and hope that if she gets some compromise, she will give in sooner. "If you don't want to wear what I am holding then choose something else, but as I said, you will not do anything else until you are dressed." The second statement locks me into an outfit and when she tries to compromise with me, "but I don't want to wear that one, I want to wear the other one", I can't give in, because I've already locked into this clothing. By always sticking to exactly what I say, I have taught her that when Mommy uses that type of tone and statement, there will be nothing else that happens until my demands are met. I never back down. If I feel I was wrong or too harsh, I find ways to stay within whatever it is that I stated as law and alter it minutely to make it make more sense or be more flexible. What I don't do is back down. This applies to more than just disipline, I also don't promise anything I can't deliver and always deliver what I promised. If we promised her a lolipop after she ate her dinner but we all forgot about it, after breakfast the next day, I make sure to give her one whether she remembers to ask for it or not. I will, as I give it to her, tell her how I promised and we all forgot about it the night before, but I remembered today and since I promised, here it is. She has learned to trust my statements to be true. True when I require something from her and true when I promise her something.

Never backing down from a stated demand sounds totalitarian, doesn't it? Hehe... This is where giving them a lot of times to be the boss helps. If you are always telling them what to do, they either lose there own free will to yours or make life miserable as you are constantly fighting. Make sure to give them LOTS of options, choices, and times of control throughout the day. That way, when you are pulling out the "I'M BOSS" card, it isn't so bad. During those times I have to be stearn, I also make sure to point out the other times to her so she learns there is balance. I will tell her, "Mommy always lets you choose the music we listen to in the car, and you got to choose your clothes earlier, and you even chose to watch a show instead of play a puzzle while we were playing."

Another example of time outs being over used is when there are other more related types of discipline available as an option. If they are playing with something in an inappropriate way, the discipline method that will make the most sense isn't to be put in a corner for a few minutes, but instead to be told, "you play with it like that again, and mommy will take it away." Taking whatever it is away is very direct and very simple so they can understand it very easily. Another direct discipline is to not allow anything except what you need to get done, to be done. When Ari was younger and we played with something like legos and I wanted her to clean them up, if she said, "NO!" then she was to sit right in the middle of the legos playing with nothing else until they were picked up. I always tell her I am happy to help, but since she made the mess, she needs to clean it up. She eventually gets bored and cleans up. If she got something else in her hand to play with, I would take it and put it in the closet. She didn't like losing her toys to the closet, so she eventually would stop grabbing at other toys. Time out should really be saved for those times when there is no direct consequence. An example would be behavior problems like hitting, not listening when there is no object involved, etc. Also, I should mention that when I give her a "you'll sit here until x," there is no time limit to sitting there. There is just do as I ask or don't. Time out needs a time limit by age because it is supposed to be "punishment" there is a difference between "punishment" and expecting a child to do as you ask. With one they are getting into trouble, with the other they are just expected to behave in a certain way. They WILL see it differently and the less you have to "punish" them, the better.

When you start with all this, there will be marathon 45 min - 1hr tantrums, but eventually, if you always stick to your statments but show them they have their own choices and opinions and that you are willing to be reasonable and compromise, they do learn to be more flexible and to believe you mean what you say so they may as well do it and move on faster. :)

I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but if anyone wants to know more or has any questions, feel free to ask me. This is just me trying to be helpful after all. :)

20 Random Things I've Learned...

2009-01-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

... after three years as a mother. :)

1) Pediatricians are not always right.
2) I really do know my daughter best.
3) Sleep "issues" come and go and in the end, it really doesn't matter if it is/was teething, growth spurt, mental leap, or nightmare. I help her through whatever it is, and eventually we get back to sleeping again, so why even try to guess...
4) There are great days and there are "those" days and you just hope to have more of the one to counter the frustrations of the other.
5) Parenting is the most mind numbing yet glorious job you can do. Finding a way to salvage your mind and do a good job is the trick. (Especially for SAHMs.)
6) Children are funny.
7) Watching your child do anything dangerous truly does stop your heart. Better make sure you are in good enough health to handle it.
8) If you can, stay close to your family. Support is priceless!
9) You WILL find yourself making up the strangest rules because you never knew what a creative little being you raised and what they would imagine up to do with a hand, a vanilla milk shake, and some whipped cream. The more creative the child, the more creative the rules.
10) Teaching a child proper behavior can sometimes be better than child proofing something. How will they learn what to do versus what not to do if they aren't even presented with the situation in the first place.
11) The only toy anyone wants to play with is the one that the other child is already playing with. I mean... if they like it, it must be the only thing worth liking right now. Hehe...
12) To go with 11... Once they learn the concept of taking turns, that suddenly becomes the reason the other child needs to give them the toy. They WANT A TURN! New rule needs to be put into place. Who knew?
13) You really will treasure and fawn over the blob of color your child tells you is a picture of your face.
14) There's nothing funnier than destroying daddy's tower.
15) A kiss from a child given freely, even slobbering all over you, is divine!
16) Talking poop is just another everyday conversation.
17) Your detergent can get food out of your clothes over, and over, and over again.
18) The generation gap is real.
19) Everyone, nowadays, has too many toys, but I think we need one more. :)
20) Being a family as a couple is SPECIAL, being a family with children is MEANINGFUL.

I'm sure I've got more, but I've got to get some sleep. Just some thoughts. :)

Ari and Jasmine's Princess Birthday

2009-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

Ari and her girlfriend Jasmine are the same age and have birthdays one day apart so they had a joint birthday party this year. It was a princess birthday party with essentially all girls. Ari is always more interested in boy things, so while all the other girls were interested in a princess costume for the most part, our girl went for the pirate costume. Hehe... It was a fun time for all!

Don't know why my embed is not working, but in case it starts working, I'm leaving it in. If it doesn't work, feel free to go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30157232@N06/sets/72157612684614593/show/

to see the pictures. :)

Praise

2009-01-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

Time... time.... time... I have not been posting and I'm sorry for it, but I have discovered this little known thing called Facebook and have been essentially spending my few free moments on there now instead of keeping up my blog. Facebook just makes it too easy to keep up with EVERYONE all at once. For those of you who have the ability to keep up with multiple playgroup message boards, blogs, facebook, and all the other things, my hats off to you. I don't know how you do it. :) Now back to my thoughts on Praise.

I have heard a lot about how child development classes are teaching people that you shouldn't over praise children. That it will teach them to listen to other peoples opinions or value of success more than their own. I have been praising Ari loads since she was little and have never given it much thought. After hearing all this I have been observing the interations as they occur and Ari's reaction to all the praise. Here is my conclusion...

Say what?? Too much praise is bad? Showing my child I value her successes is bad? Teaching children to want to please someone other than themselves some of the time is bad? We all know and see that children are inherently selfish beings when they first come out. The only thing they are focused on is themselves. It is nearly impossible for me to believe that through praise, these selfish beings will suddenly not care one iota about themselves and will just want to please others. I do see, that Ari is starting to want to please us some of the time, but I don't think that learning to please your parents some times is a bad thing. I remember when I was younger, the worst punishment I could get was when my parents said I disappointed them. That one, would sting for a long time while any groundings were just there and then not.

I hope that she does learn to please others sometimes and not just herself. I do make sure to sometimes throw in a "You must be so proud of yourself!" to emphasize for her that I hope she is also pleased, not just us, but why not do things to make others happy and proud some of the time. There are so many times we don't see and things we don't witness that there are plenty of opportunities for her to do things because it pleases her and no one else.

So I say... PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE!!! Hopefully, your child will learn there is balance in life between pleasing ourselves, pleasing others, and making our parents proud of us. What a great gift to give a child. :)

Ari's Language Leap

2008-05-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

Ari has been speaking so much lately. The latest bought of not sleeping through the night has been punctuated with her unable to sleep so she cries and I go in to her, I do the normal check the pacifier, check for froggy, rub on the head and leave. When she really can't sleep, she cries again like she has been and now that she is in her big girl bed, I lay down next to her. As I lay there praying we both just fall asleep, Ari chats and chats and chats. I'm not really sure I remember to well what she was talking about, but it was pretty much anything. She was running the gambit. In between bits of conversation she would reach over and kindly pat my head. LOL Sweet but it also kept me from falling asleep. We see these times of bad sleep as her leaping forward in something. In the past it was practicing crawling, pulling up, walking, etc. Now it is sentence forming and understanding and describing concepts and the world around her.

The other day Daddy and Ari were playing with a plastic gardening claw that I had gotten her. It still had the tag attached by a plastic ring. She said, "Take it off." So I responded, "Okay, I'll go get the scissors." Ari said, "Mommy going to get scissors to cut it off." 8 Words! We couldn't believe it. Her longest sentence yet!

People who know Ari also know that since she was little she has been fascinated by letters and numbers and anything to do with them. The other day in the shower, she grabbed one of her shower crayons and wrote an H, an A, and a T. HAT! She has spelled her first word by herself! It was messy, obviously, but it was definitely HAT. I was so excited for her. She's been practicing for so long.

Okay... that is the Ari update for today. Next post is of the parenting style type. :)

Respectful vs. Sucker

2008-05-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

It is so hard to find a good balance between teaching our children to share, respect others, take turns, wait in line and to be a doormat, sucker, wallpaper. Today I watched what I thought was that line crossed so here I am writing. :)

I always try to make sure that I am right there to tell Ari, do not take that toy they are playing with, wait your turn, be patient, share what you have been playing with for a while, etc. I also make sure that she sees me advocate for her though when other children aren't playing by those rules. If she has just started playing with something, that is not a share time, that is the time when the other child needs to learn not to take someone else's toy. When she has been waiting patiently to take a turn on something, I make sure she gets her turn at the right time. I do not allow another child to walk all over her rights as much as I don't let Ari walk on other people's rights.

Today at an indoor play place we like to go to, Ari and I were playing in one area that had a little kids roller coaster type thing and at the end of it, there are soft blocks that you can make a tower to ride through if you so choose. Next to us were two moms chatting away. They each had a boy around 4 or 5 years old and one had a little girl around a year. We will call them Mom A, who has just Little Boy A, and Mom B with Little Boy B and Little Girl B. Little Boy A was trying to build himself a tower to then rise through but it was taking a while because it kept falling over. Ari and I were playing with something else, but she ended up taking an interest in the roller coaster. I was about to tell her she could go after Little Boy A. Mom A stepped in and said, Little Boy A should let Ari have a turn. I wanted to tell her that it was okay he had been working on this tower for a while, etc., but I don't like to contradict a mom trying to teach her child a life lesson like sharing so I went with it. I made sure to tell Ari how nice it was for the boy to have built us a tower, to thank him, and that he was going to have his turn as soon as she was done. We took our turn and kept playing in the area with something else. Little Boy A starts building his tower again. A little boy about one walks into the area unattended and keeps knocking this boys tower over. The little boys mom isn't around to correct it, and Little Boy A's mom isn't doing anything about it either. I wasn't really involved so I wasn't sure what I should do, but I know that if it was Ari working so hard, I would have actively distracted this little child away from the tower so she could build it.

Anyway, the little boy finally distracted himself elsewhere and Little Boy A was starting to make progress on his tower when Little Boy B runs up, sits on the roller coaster thingie, and says it is his turn and that Little Boy A should make him a tower. Little Boy A tries to say it is his turn, but both mother's are ignoring the whole affair and the one sitting down, Little Boy B, wins. He builds the tower and right before Little Boy B starts to go, Little Girl B comes up to her brother wanting a turn and her mom says to Little Boy B, "You can take your turn, but it is her turn next." So... right after Little Boy B, Little Girl B gets to go. My heart was breaking for Little Boy A. He had been trying so hard to make himself a tower to go just once and he was being so very patient and he just kept getting pushed off. I did the only thing an outsider could possibly do, since I'm not his mother, I told him how patient he was being and that it was so nice of him to build the towers for the other children.

In my book, if you are going to interfere with normal child interactions where they need to resolve their own conflicts with might to teach respecting each other, then you also need to interfere in a way that advocates for your child so they learn not only do others need to get respect, but that they deserve to demand respect from others in kind. Otherwise, just step out of it entirely so you don't demolish their self worth.

Kindness and respect are a two way road.

Some Cute, Some Funny Things!

2008-05-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ari likes to dress up as a pirate and run around saying "Argh! Looking for treasure chest! Aye Mateys!" LOL The evidence is above.

Ari also likes to play video games which makes sense since her dad and I are both total geek gamers. Here is the evidence for this one.

My husband got back from work the other day and Ari was busy with something on the floor in the family room. He comes to me and gives me a big hug. I love his hugs! Well, Ari looks up from what she is doing and yells, "Wait a minute!" She then runs over, stands between us saying, "up!" We pick her up and she just so happy to be included in our hug. :) My heart could well burst with love and joy at this little girl! I also couldn't help laughing at her, "Wait a minute!" It was so out of the blue and funny!

There is a holiday in Judaism called Lag B Omer. For this holiday, people create bonfires in commemoration. We took Ari to a celebration that was held early, for this holiday. Here is Ari watching her first bonfire. She was fascinated! This is a family shot with my husband, me, and my mom.

She is well attached to her lovie, Froggy. It turns out that yesterday, while my husband and I had the gall to go on a date to a movie (with no little kids, thank god!), my mom, Safta, had to put Ari to sleep. Well, all would have been well except Ari has started putting Froggy into one of her drawers in her dresser. I forgot to mention this to my mom, unfortunately. Part way through the movie I get a call, "Where is Froggy?!?!?!?" I had to explain about the drawer. When we get home, I get the full lowdown. Turns out that they, my mom and Ari, were wandering the whole house looking for Froggy. Apparently they were both chanting, "Where's Froggy?" in a desperate attempt to get the little guy to show himself. Ari isn't allowed out of her room with her pacifier but since they were up in her room before my mom realized they were missing a certain green friend, they came downstairs with paci in mouth. My little angel proceeded to point at her pacifier with a ha, ha, look what I shouldn't be doing hum in her voice. After much looking, my mom tries to give Ari a different frog friend to sleep with. Apparently, when this happened and my mom left her upstairs, Ari just laid there saying in a sad voice, "Froggy.... Froggy... Froggy." My mom couldn't stand to hear her so sad, which brings us to the phone call in the theater. I think she likes her little buddy... what do you think? Hehe... No other frog will do! Yes that's him whispering sweet nothings in her ear. :)

Lately, she has taken to singing a lot too! It is so cute I just have to find my video camera! She sings Mary had a Red Dress, 5 Little Monkeys, Humpty Dumpty, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old McDonald, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. I'll have to send her to American Idol Tot Audition! :)

Tomorrow we start soccer class! I think she will love this since she just adores kicking around a ball and being outside. I'll let you know!

Long Ari Update

2008-06-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy time so I have not been very good at keeping up with my postings, but I know I need to do another Ari update before anything else, so here goes. :)

The last weekend in May we went to visit family near San Jose. We chose to drive up which took about 9 hours with stops for traveling with a toddler. Especially since we got out the gate and pretty soon after, she peed through her clothes. We switched clothes and diaper and went on our merry way. We eventually stopped at a Flying J truck stop thinking that the buffet they offer would give Ari enough variety that she would be happy eating. WRONG! I ended up eating crappy buffet food while my husband says he isn't hungry and Ari refuses to think about food. Also, we could buy gas or anything from the store because their computers were down. We went to another gas station and they had run out of gas. The last one finally offered up some gas and a way to pay. Hehe.. Of course while there, I changed her diaper again. About 20 minutes away from there, Ari pees through her clothes again. *groan* Are we sure we are going to make it? LOL Anyway, we finally did make our destination and we all had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, the trip back wasn't so good (you hear the sarcasm there). She was not in the mood to hang in the car for so long while being sick. There was much crying by the end unfortunately. Anyway... Here are some pictures from the trip. :)This first picture is Ari and Mommy at a really cool play area called The Jungle.
This one is also from the Jungle. They had some fun ride on toys like this cute dinosaur that Ari loved.This next picture is Ari showing off how she can play computer games all by herself now. She has become so good with a mouse. It is amazing!

In this picture, Ari was playing with her Daddy and Uncle. Daddy handed her random things from inside the house and Ari with her shoes on and Mommy's shoes on would race out, clomp clomp clomp, and give it to her Uncle Chris. It was a good time for all. Sometimes it is the simple things that entertain them. :)

The next weekend, we took Ari all over the place. Here are some pictures from the fun we had then.

This is Ari at the Air and Space Museum. She just loves the little Air Plane that they have for them to climb into. She spends so much time just climbing in and out and spinning the propeller. This is a really bad picture of me, but such a great picture of the two people I love most, so it had to make the cut. We are still in the Air and Space Museum in another airplane that you can climb into. She loves this place. :)
After the Air and Space Museum we headed over to an area near the zoo that has a carousel and a great train. This is Mommy and Ari on the Carousel. I don't know why Ari had to go on the Ostrich, but that's what she wanted. LOL

And this is Daddy and Ari on the train ride. She sat behind the engine and just had a blast!
Later that day, after her nap, we went to La Jolla Shores beach and enjoyed some sand. I originally tried to raise a tom boy and up to a point she is, but her favorite colors lately are pink and yellow. She looks so cute in it, it is hard to try to dissuade her. Guess she has a little girly girl in there. :)While at the beach, we saw the most unusual thing that just fascinated Ari. These college kids were making a movie about this robot couple. Ari got to watch the guy and girl play "dress up" in robot costumes. They then danced together. It was so funny. Notice the girl robot has designer yellow shoes, a pink bow in her hair, and her middle is long like a dress. Hehe...
The next day we took Ari to Sea World. We were in the Shamu area and people kept walking in front of our friend as he was trying to capture a picture of her. It turned out to be a cute picture though with her peeking through all those people.
Here is a broad shot from the same time. On this day Ari dressed herself. Yellow pants, red shirt, purple coat, pink hat, gold necklace, if I remember correctly black socks, and brown shoes. Doesn't she look cute? :)I also promised everyone a picture of Ari at soccer. This is the first one I got this last week. She is adorable in her little soccer shirt. I'll add more as soon as I get to downloading them.

Okay... that's it for this update. Besides everything above, this last weekend my husband and I went away to Vegas for my first night and day and a half away from Ari. I was nervous, but she had a blast with her Safta and Saba and I had an amazing time in Vegas with the love of my life. We walked like a gazillion miles ate a second dinner at 1 AM and slept in a little bit. While there, we saw the Cirque Du Soliel show LOVE. It was AMAZING! It has become my favorite Cirque show. I highly recommend it. Not sure I refreshed in the sleep department, but I definitely think I refreshed in the mental department. My husband and I got to talk about something other than child rearing. It was really wonderful! Anyway, this is why I haven't been as active as I should on here, but I'll try to play catch up for the next few days.

Thanks for reading!

A Day with Safta

2008-06-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Why is it that Grandparents are so much more fun? :)While John and I were in Vegas we went to Excaliber and bought Ari a pink dragon (not shown), a princess crown, and a princess scepter or wand. We just couldn't come back empty handed... (Can anyone say parental guilt?) LOL Anyway, she is adorable in them. The first day she got them she got the scepter first and right away said, "need a crown!" LOL Luckily, we were prepared.
My mom set up a blow up pool in her back yard that Ari was having a blast playing in. Apparently she was dancing in and out of it, splashing around like a mermaid, and having all sorts of tomfoolery. :)

Thanks Safta for making your time together really memorable for you both!

Father's Day Weekend

2008-06-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

We started out on Friday night celebrating our father's day weekend with me going to a mom's book club meeting. John and our good friend Bruce (the guy who takes most of the pictures on this web site, Thank Bruce!) took Ari to a park we like a lot in La Jolla. From what I hear, fun was had by all. Unfortunately, dusk was playing tricks with our friends camera and most of the pictures were too dark to see much. Here is one that shows our pretty girl from that night out with the boys. :)
The next photo is from Saturday morning. We went to a kids indoor playground called Super Play. It was a lot of fun! Here Ari is showing off her inner domestic goddess...
and practicing her driving preparing to ask Daddy for the keys to the car already.
One of the favorite things there for our thrill seeker is a go cart ride. You can check out how tall they are here:
And how much she loves speed here:
Saturday afternoon we decided to check out the San Diego Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The first thing we ran into that Ari just HAD TO DO, was the pony ride. She was disappointed that she forgot her cowgirl hat in the car, but she was still adorable and super happy on her horse, Franky.
Then we found the Kiddieland area and boy was that a mistake, I mean fun. After riding a nice kiddie boat ride......Ari was back to needing SPEED! There was a children's roller coaster and she just had to go on it. Of course, she also decided to sit in back and as I was flinging about because it was meant for someone 37" tall, I'm thinking... I hope she isn't scared against roller coasters after this. So what did she say afterwards? MORE!
We decided that instead of more, we would go fishing which she would like as well. So here you see her and I maneuvering a fish rod as we caught a fish. We won a small prize which has become a HUGE hit! What could this prize be?
A pink hedgehog. LOL You can see it in her hands here as Daddy holds her after the victory.
If you thought we were finished with our thrill seeking... You were wrong. She saw a boat that went not only rocking back and forth, but also spun around as it rocked back and forth. I made sure that this time we at least sat in the middle! Oh.. and afterwards... We yelled, "MORE!", again.
Once again, we distracted her. I took her through a mirror maze and showed her how to feel our way through. I'm not sure if she totally got what it was all about, but we smiled at each other in the mirrors and I didn't have to get flung about. Hehe...
After this we saw a really cute train that we just had to ride on so here we are sitting in the caboose all buckled up. :)
The next three pictures are a combination. You may be wondering why I'm giving a sarcastic thumbs up in this first shot...
...while Ari is having such a good time (holding her hedgehog) in this shot.
Well... All these rides charged you 3 tickets for the child and 3 tickets for the adult as well even though I'm only there because she needed me to be there. In the picture below you will notice that Ari is driving a truck with me in the back. Not only in the back, but there isn't even a window behind her head so she can check that I'm there. In fact... I had no idea if she was doing okay or not. I couldn't see her AT ALL. John had a better idea of whether she was doing well. So... I was essentially there for my own happiness at riding the back of the truck. Hence... the need for sarcasm. Hehe...
This was a cool shot our friend Bruce took of John and Ari with the lights of the fair behind them. I think it turned out amazing.
Here is the evidence of what a bad mommy I am. Would you like some chocolate and ice cream before bed time? More? OKAY! It's a fair. You can't leave without having a treat!
So... we spent father's day weekend being a family for the most part. On father's day, John did get to choose where to eat breakfast, spend time in his garage doing woodworking, and eating a steak dinner. As far as his gift? Well... that happened weeks ago. Ari and I gave Daddy a hammock and stand. He loves it. :) I chose the best Daddy for Ari possible! We love you John!

Random

2008-06-20T00:13:00.001-07:00

It's already late, so this will be a short, random Ari update. The first picture is Ari on the train at the UTC mall. They say you have to be 3 to ride alone, but they don't really uphold that and Ari loves riding in the engine which she has to ride alone, so here she is braving the tracks like a big girl in the lead car!The next picture is from Ari's soccer class. Last week we had the last day of class and on the last day, they gave them a medal for doing so well in class. You see it flying around her neck. She was so happy and proud of herself. It was really cute!

Other than that...

Has anyone else been watching DISCH L? It is now called Planet Green. I am learning so much about what we do that is not good and what we can do that can help. It is really affecting me. I always felt that I at least knew most of the things we are doing wrong (not recycling enough, too many plastic bottles, etc.) but there is so much more! I am hooked and changing a lot of things slowly but surely that I am doing to make our lives a little less environmentally unfriendly.

Now... don't think that I am becoming some crazy tree hugger nor do I even really consider myself an environmentalist. I'm not doing this because I am worried about the planet. I am doing this because I am worried about my daughter and my grandchildren's future. So.. I'm a people-ist. The planet will be here no matter what happens to it and it doesn't care in what state it exists. We on the other hand can't live on just any version of this planet. We need it to stay as close to the same as possible. That means that while I believe that the earth will eventually become unlivable just like it once was, we should do our best not to speed things along because we haven't figured out how to live somewhere else yet.

I also do believe that a lot of our decisions in the past to make life easier, have turned out to be poisoning us and I want support business that are creating products that are not full of harmful chemicals for us and for our landfills. What we have done to our food supply and to our soaps and moisturizers, etc. is amazing when you start reading about it.

Again, I am working towards a healthier life one step at a time, even if they are very little steps, they are something. One example of a baby step that someone pointed out to me, which is a good example, is that we have a real problem with how many plastic bottles we use in our society. Even though they can be recycled, there just aren't enough things made from recycled plastics that we are willing to buy to make sure we use up all the bottles being thrown away. One place to save on this is of course to get a water service instead of buying bottled water. It is really price equivalent, for the most part, is delivered right to your door, and you just need to get some bottles that you can use to refill. Another place though, which is the great baby step suggestion I mentioned above, is to buy only bar soap instead of pump soap. It just never occurred to me, but bar soaps are surrounded in paper which does have a high rate of recycle ability versus the pump. There really is no reason to have the pump. Another one that I would love to see is bulk shampoo. Why should I buy a new bottle of the same shampoo I get every time when I could just as easily bring my bottle to the store and refill it instead. If only this were available. *Sigh* Come on companies! Lets start figuring this whole thing out. Change is in the air. :)

Okay... Like I said in the beginning. It is late and time to go to sleep. Goodnight all!

I'm A Brand New Reader!

2008-06-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

Ari is reading. We are shocked. A couple of months ago she had started reading some of her baby books like the Sandra Boynton ones. You know... the kind of books that have opposites on them like "dinosaurs happy, dinosaurs sad, dinosaurs good, and dinosaurs bad." We figured she was just memorizing the books she had read a lot of times, but memorization is the first step to reading, so we should get her more of a challenge. I found these books at the book store called Brand New Readers. There are multiple sets and they include 10 very short story books appropriate for someone learning to read. They also include 10 stickers (1 for each book) and a page that you can place the stickers on as you successfully read each book. Our first set was the red one, which I got about a month ago. We completed that one and got the Orange set about a week and a half ago. We have since completed that one and are on to set three. Set three we got with her there and before we could even leave the book store, Ari yells, "I want to read a book! Earn a sticker!" John decides, sure, why not... there is no way she is going to get this on the first try anyway. No harm. I give him a look like, yeah right! Can you guess what happens next? There we are in the middle of a book store taking apart something we haven't paid for yet. She, of course, earned her first sticker. Great! This one didn't even make it home. We've decided that we can't afford our daughters speedy reading abilities and so are going to have to start a charity, "Ari's reading fund. Donations welcome!" :) Here is a picture of her first two sticker collections proudly displayed on the back of her door so she can see them when she is in her room.
For those that don't know us... have I mentioned she is 2 1/2 years old? We estimate that she can now read at least 40 books on her own. Some of the other books I get her are individual beginning reader books from a stand that has them with numbers at the top of the book indicating the difficulty rating. We went through 3 number one books in the last weeks and a half as well. While at the book store attempting to get stickers, we got her a number two book to see how she would do with it. Definitely a challenge, but she can still read through most of it. Am I getting Shakespeare next?

I actually have a funny story to tell about this. So... I took Ari up to her nap one day and we went through our normal nap-time routine. We read a book, laid down, I sang her a song, and kisses, love you, and sleep well. This was a day that she was not going to go down easy. Anyway... After a couple of initial visits up there, I decided that if all she is doing is playing or talking, she can do that on her own. I here her up there just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. After a long while, my curiosity and my desire for her to get some sleep get the best of me. I go up, silently open her door, and see her sitting in her rocking chair with a book open across her legs as she is reading herself another story (because evil mommy wouldn't read us another story). I sneak back out knowing that walking in their laughing with a big grin across my face would not be conducive to getting her to sleep. When she finally does call me up again, I calmly get her back into sleep mode, all the while thinking, "GOOD JOB, BABY! YOU READ YOURSELF A BED TIME STORY!" I can't possibly say that right then, but boy was I the proud mama bear.

Now I'm the proud mama bear with a direct line from my wallet to the book store. Hehe...

There are worse things to spend money on. We couldn't be happier! Our little girl is a brand new reader!

Another Ari update to follow soon!

Bay of Play, Flags, and Planters

2008-07-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been there, I love the new Bay of Play at Sea World. Ari had such a good time on a recent visit. I didn't get a lot of pictures, because a lot of our time there we were just the two of us, but once my mom joined us, we caught a couple of cute pictures of Ari getting to meet Grover. She was so excited!

For the fourth of July, every year, there is a really nice real estate agent that comes to our neighborhood and deposits these little flags in everyones yard. It always makes for a nice fourth of July surprise. :)
Remember me alluding to a planter in an earlier post, well here is what my husband and his father built during this most recent visit. We wanted a raised garden so it was easy to maintain without bending over and they did an amazing job! This is just the first. We plan on doing two more. :) Isn't it beautiful?

This next picture shows you starting from left, that we have two roma tomato plants and an artichoke plant.
Next to that, we have four strawberry plants and finally 4 Japanese cucumber plants.

We are not sure how all of these will do, but we can't wait to see and eat! In the next two planters we plan on putting some herbs and other vegetables. We may even get a second artichoke plant and move the strawberry ones over to one of the other planters since they tend to grow out a lot and who couldn't use more artichokes. :) If you have any suggestions for things to grow, we are all ears. The things we are considering but were told some are more winter season while others we could plant now are: peas, baby carrots, onions, string beans, and maybe even corn. For herbs, I'm sure it will be like basil, thyme, mint, oregano, and pretty much all your basic herbs.

As far as how I am doing personally... for anyone still interested in knowing more about miscarriage, read on, others feel free to skip. So today was the worst. Apparently, all that minor cramping pain was leading up to a big tahdah and that was today. Intense pain (took 2 motrin) and loads of ickyness. By tonight though, I'm back to moderate bleeding, so I hope that means I have made it through the worst and am cresting over that hill.

As a good friend pointed out in the comments of an earlier post, it is a process. I am a big believer that medicine is best used when it is absolutely needed. Our bodies go through so many day to day process and then there are big events. Just because they are big events, for me, doesn't make them less a process. I am a big proponent of natural birth. I think the birthing process (notice the word there) is something that the body just goes through and when you go through it, certain things like hormones and such are all released at the appropriate times, the body reacts to things at the appropriate time, etc. When these process are altered, who knows what we are doing to our bodies experience and reactions. Maybe I'm just coming off as some big tree hugger. Truth is, one day, for those that haven't heard it before, I'll post Ari's birth story, but needless to say, neither I nor she would have made it without modern medicine, so I don't dispute the wonders that medicine does provide us with. I just believe, like with Ari, it should be used when there is no choice. I decided that principle held true with this as well, and I think, letting it follow its own path has let me come down from the hormonal high of pregnancy at a steady pace. I definitely couldn't imagine dealing with todays pain on top of all the pain from previous days all mushed into one. That seems like it would be so hard. There was definitely a part of me that wished to just get it over with, but.. ouch! The gradual definitely worked for me.

Anyway... this means there probably won't be too many more posts touching on this subject. :)

Be Back Soon

2008-08-04T00:19:00.000-07:00

Every day I think... I will be able to find the time to post something fabulous tonight or at the very least post an update about Ari and every night I find my self so busy/tired/distracted that I just can't pull it all together. I appreciate all of my loyal readers checking in with me and I do promise I will be back to my writing and updates per usual very soon.

For now, I will leave you with a quickie.

My miscarriage: I know I posted that most web sites say to contact your doctor if you are bleeding for more than 2 weeks, but after about 2 1/2 weeks (I gave myself leeway) it dropped down to very light almost spotty bleeding and I thought... today will be the last day.. I'll wait until tomorrow to call the doc. This has gone on for an extra 2 weeks of me putting off having a medical intervention since it was so light. I think that I have finally turned that corner and can start planning for our future again.

Ari: Still reading up a storm. She's gotten sick again with a cold and so we have had to keep it low key for a few days which with Ari means high energy but stuck at home. So yesterday, after being totally stir crazy, we took her for her first nature hike and we all had a blast except that it got way to hot way to fast so we were only out walking about 45 mintutes. Still... she had a great time and we all got some fresh air and exercise. Ari has also discovered dressing up and here is one example of that:How cute is she? Neigh!!! She has also started getting super affectionate by giving out hugs. :) It's really cute.

One of her favorite books right now is a sing along as you turn the page book by Raffi named Baby Beluga. It was introduced to her in her music class and she has fallen in love with it ever since. Now, she actually tried to sing along which brings tears to my eyes its so cute.

My Mom and Dad watched Ari this weekend so we could go see X-Files. I thought it was okay. Definitely not my favorite, but if you like the show, it passes for a long episode. Last weekend, for the second time, I saw Mama Mia (I saw it the weekend before as well). I LOVE this movie and totally recommend it to anyone who likes Abba music. Even if you don't like Abba music but love theater and movies that just make you feel good, this is the one you want to see. The weekend before, it came in direct contrast for me, it was a movie full weekend, with Dark Knight, which I also thought was great, but definitely extremely dark.

Anyway, Ari has a new friend and some amazing pictures with this new friend, but I still need to confirm with the mom that I can post them. Hopefully, that will be the next post. That and another opinion piece soon. :)

Again, thanks for sticking this through with me. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun without knowing you'all were out there (even my lurkers)! Hehe...

Sea World Butterfly

2008-12-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ari Update Promised

2008-12-09T01:35:00.000-08:00

I know... I know... Lately, life has just been more than enough to keep me busy. I'm sorry to any loyal followers for being disappointing the last month+. This is still going to have to be a quickie. Mostly because I have been getting death threats from family members who are wanting Ari updates! :) So.. In this set, you'll see the sunset from our backyard, Ari with friends, Ari with her family, playing video games, going on a nature walk and throwing rocks, going on a firetruck, playing at legoland and at the mall, and eating chocolate. I think that about gives the overall summation. :)

Thanks for being our friends and giving us such great memories and for following my erratic blog!

I Love You This Much Award

2008-10-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Rhonda for loving my blog enough to give me this award! She is a great blogger with a beautiful family. If you haven't checked out her blog before, then definitely go and read. :)

I think most everyone I know has already received this award, but I don't think my good friend, Anissa, has so I'm passing it on to her. She is an amazing woman, artist, and friend. Check out her blog to see daily interesting photos she has taken. Also scroll down to her cool 40th B-Day celebration post and link to the photos. She had a "death" theme and the costumes were awesome! Thanks for being great and having such a great blog!

Life Vs. Blogging Life

2008-10-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever found yourself in the situation where there are so many cool things going on in life that you want to blog about, but your so busy living it, you can't actually get around to blogging it. That's the last few weeks. This is going to have to be semi-superficial so that I can give a 10 ft. down view of what we have been doing. I still haven't gotten my stuff together enough to work with my pictures, so those will still have to wait.

We have had a plethora of Jewish holidays lately. If you don't know them, here is the quick list.

Rosh Hashanah - Jewish New Year
Yom Kipur - Holiest Day, Get Written into the Book of Life
Sukkot - Celebration of the Tabernacle and Harvest
And coming up next week:
Simchat Torah - Translated Joy of the Torah, Too hard to explain fast

On top of these holidays, my husband and I took another one night away vacation to San Francisco one of these past weekends. It was great and we were able to see his brother and sister-in-law.

We have some new memberships to local attractions that I would highly recommend. Ari is in love with Legoland and Sea Life. If you live anywhere nearish to Carlsbad, CA, I highly recommend getting a membership. If you have not seen Sea Life yet, I also highly recommend checking it out. This new aquarium put the Birch Aquarium in San Diego to total and complete shame. It may as well be a puddle compared to Sea Life. We are there at least once a week now.

Another great membership is to the Natural History Museum. Ari is a girl in love with Thomas the Train, rockets, helicopters, Go Diego Go, and lately, lots and lots of dinasours. We took her there recently and had so much fun for the whole family. They also have a mommy and me event there that we might try to make some time.

The last membership is to the new Children's Museum in downtown. She had a blast with painting the volkswagon, blowing bubbles, and creating streets with tape all over the lower floor.

Besides all of this, Ari has been having a really hard time sleeping lately. Who knows why and does it really matter? In the end, whether it is teething or growth spurt or nightmare or something else, no matter what, I'm going to comfort her and try to help her through it and be tired as a dog the next day. So... I've realized I can stop guessing and just focus on getting through whatever it is. The hardest part isn't the waking up over night, though that is no fun either, but it is trying to get her to sleep. She has been having a really hard time unwinding into sleep and we have been starting at 8 with 2 bed time shows in the hopes that 2 will unwind her more, then at 9 she goes up to brush her teeth and read books and then we struggle to get to sleep until after 11. Again, like I said, I'm sure we'll get through it, but I'm not getting a lot of extra time to do much of anything except catch up on sleep.

Oh... almost forgot... in the time I've been away, Ari started preschool and I've pulled her out of preschool. Hehe... That is a story for another time. I'll post again soon with the details. :)

I'm sure there is more, but I'll have to write that later as well. :)

War Wounds

2008-09-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

It is taking me a decent amount of time getting things together, especially all my picture things so I can make another update, so we interrupt your regularly scheduled update with an OpEd piece.

War wounds... That is what one of my friends who recently had a baby used to describe the damage she is going to have to live with from her babies birth. It really got me thinking because that is a perfect description of ALL of what we deal with after having a baby. It doesn't matter if it is damage to a certain area, the scar running along the underside of your belly from having a c-section, the loose skin, stretch marks, floppy breasts, extra pounds, wider hips, or emotional damage. These are all our war wounds that we acquired taking on the most important job that exists in the world... producing life. What nobler cause could we possibly have undertaken than to put our bodies through hell so that a little being can get to live. Are we brave? You bet. Not only are there the things that you know about going into it, but there is always a list a mile long of things you don't know about that you might have to face so we are brave in the face of the known AND the unknown. Especially, those of us who do it more than once, having gone down the path, seeing how our bodies have changed, we still want to face all of it again to bring another little bundle to life.

So... if these are our war wounds, why is it that society makes us feel that ALL of our war wounds are ugly and disfiguring while a man's scar from taking a life, protecting a life, or just being manly and getting into a brawl, is sexy. You know... the whole, "Oh, nice scar. There must be a great story behind that, Mr. Dangerous." Or, bullet wound scars for being so brave as to protect a life. My body protected life and then fought for it. The C-section scar after 40+ hours of labor, is proof that I did what I had to do to protect my babies life. She and I were both going to die if this hadn't been an option. It is risking death to have a baby. Not as much now, but things do go wrong sometimes.

Also, what about our emotional damage. Even if you don't suffer from post-partum depression (ppd), you still take away some emotional baggage and almost EVERYONE I know has had the baby blue's at the very least, since our hormones and flying high. These are war wounds too. Even if you get over it, the feelings/memories linger and are a part of you forever. The days of crying after Ari was born are there forever etched into my mind. Without a basic support system (meaning stay close to home and good friends which we weren't) you just don't know how to cope with it all. Then you feel guilty for having negative feelings and it all spills over into baby blue's/PPD.

I am going to start thinking of the various issues within my soul and on the outside of my body as the war wounds my friend described and remember to look at them as such. They aren't ugly, they are the signs that I fought a good fight to have my daughter and all the joy she brings into the world with her.

I raise my blog glass to all the mothers and their war wounds. I salute you!

Dang Hard Drives!

2008-09-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

I know I have been absent for a long time. I'm sorry about that. I have been dealing with drama with my fridge and more recently, drama with my laptop. Turns out my hard drive is having some REALLY bad mechanical failure and we aren't sure if we will be able to salvage anything off of it or not. Until then, we did get me a new hard drive and recently installed it and hopefully I will be up and running smoothly soon. I just wanted to come in and let you know what has been going on that has been interrupting my updates and thoughts. I'll be back as soon as I get my bearings! I have so many posts to make!

Safta Leah Turns 80

2008-09-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

We had a party for my Grandma's 80th while we were in Israel. Her birthday is truly the only reason to go to Israel in August! Otherwise, choose a cooler month. :) It was held in a party room of a restaurant and had a DJ along with a trumpet player. We were worried that Ari would freak out having so many new people wanting to hold/play with her all in one room along with loud music. What really happened? She befriended EVERYONE and danced all night! Following is a sampling of the pictures from the party. Of course, most include my little angel or my grandma. :) Love you Safta Leah! Happy 80th! Oh... And everyone got up to say some nice things about my Grandma. I thought I would include the shot of me nervously public speaking. I hate talking in front of people!! I get so nervous, my stomach does flips, my hands start getting a little shaky and I drone on and on. Luckily, this time, while I got very nervous, especially having to speak in front of everyone in Hebrew, I made sure to keep it short.. Whew!

Beit Guvrin Caves and Tel Maresha Excavations

2008-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

The day after Haifa, we went to Beit Guvrin Caves and Tel Maresha Excavations in the Latrun area of Israel. You park at in one of a few parking lots and then you hike around between the various caverns most of which weren't that extensive, but a few were really amazing. This was an ancient society and much of what we saw were either living quarters, cisterns, burial grounds, or the areas where they worked at olive pressing. You will also see Roadie the Raccoon in one of the pictures in this set. :) These are not the most flattering pictures of me, but I am an out of shape mom running around in 100+ degree weather through the desert climbing up and down a bunch of stairs. Please give me a little itty bitty break. :)

Grrrr....

2008-09-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

So... This is a quick post to share my frustration. I have been trying to post another installment of my Israel trip and pictures, but I am experiencing some technical difficulty with Flickr and have now contacted them to tell me what is wrong. I tried a few different times and ways to deal with my problem, but nothing has worked so... I can't do another installment until I get that figured out. I want to use the sideshow so that you can see all the photos without it taking up a lot of space.

So... be back soon with that post.

Baha'i Gardens

2008-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

This post begins a series reviewing my trip in Israel and our return trip.

Our first stop was in Tel Aviv where we saw some family and tried to stay awake until night time and sleep as best we could through the night. Unfortunately, Ari didn't like the idea of sleeping through the night, so instead we slept part of the night and then spent a few hours in bed all together watching DVDs on our laptops and singing quietly in the dark until hours later, we all finally fell asleep again. This might well be the first time we have had a family bed. Maybe the second, but either way, it's rare and very sweet.

The next day we spent in Jerusalem and I didn't remember to take any pictures, but my sister-in-law did, so I'll have to update a post later on with pictures and information about this day.

The third day was a relaxing day and my Grandma's 80th BDay and again, I will update with this because while I have some pictures from the professional photographer there,I know my SIL got some good shots and I want to wait to add them to the group.

This brings us to my first post. It is about our next day which was a trip up to Haifa located in Northern Israel along the coast about an hour to an hour and a half away from Tel Aviv. We went to Elijah's Cave which I, again, don't have pictures of, but to be honest, other than being neat because it is Elijah's cave, it was nothing to interesting. It was literally a tiny hole in the wall type of cave near the coast of the city. So we'll just skip any pictures of it. The next stop, though, after lunch, was the Baha'i Gardens. Here is the link to their website for information about the religion if you are interested in learning more. And below are all my pictures of the gardens themselves. They are truly impressive and beautiful!

My parents and my husband decided to head back with Ari after this, but my brother, SIL, and myself continued exploring Haifa. We walked around this beautiful sculpture garden and then took some cable cars up to a monastery. I don't really have any pictures of the monastery because it was really dark and somewhat unimpressive. The views were great and the ride up was fun. :) Keep your eyes open for a raccoon in the pictures. My SIL and some friends, taking a note from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, created a group the Sisterhood of the Traveling Roadie (raccon's name). When each of them takes a vacation they get to take Roadie with them and need to take pictures of him on his vacation. It was rather fun thinking up cool/funny places to put Roadie. I'm going to probably be stealing this idea for our kids when they get old enough to enjoy it. Make sure you take note of Roadie being used as a tennis ball between two sculptures. :)

Speaking of my SIL and brother, here is a beautiful pictures of them when we stopped to get something to drink. It was D*MN hot there! Hehe...

I'll post more about the trip soon. :) Organizing all these photos.

On the way back....

2008-08-24T05:33:00.001-07:00

We will be heading home tonight. Really it is tomorrow morning, but that is only because it is at 12:50AM!!!!!! I know that they think this will help with adjusting to the jet lag since I will get to sleep on the plane, but how do you tell that to your cranky and sleepy 2 1/2 year old! Any, I have a lot of pictures and a lot of stories to share. I will start with one picture for now, which is the first picture of this trip and happened on our flight out....

Ari was such a sweet child the whole way. She REALLY tried to be good and helpful and I was so impressed with her. Her dad and I had our arsenal of books, DVDs, games, and songs and between all these, somehow with a child screaming 2 rows away the whole trip, she was able to get some sleep. I didn't get any sleep except 45 minutes while her dad distracted her, but overall the flight could have gone WAY worse. Doesn't she look like a little angel? Oh... and as you can see in this picture, I brought her pillow along for the ride so she had a piece of home. She also had her pacifier and her froggy and that made everything great as far as she was concerned. One thing I learned from the trip was that I needed to say, lets go make new friends instead of change a diaper. Why argue over changing the diaper, when it can be a part of the making new friends routine. Every time we would get up, people would joke with her and play with her. I have mentioned in my mommy group before that El Al is a SUPER child friendly airline and they once again lived up to their reputation. The changing tables have these posters near them so that the kids have something to look at and be distracted during the change, they have great food as well as providing child friendly meals if ordered ahead of time, they handed me a puzzle game out to all the children, and the crew LOVES kids! They kept asking her her name, one grabbed her in a friendly way to tickle her and play with her, another was giving her high fives and asking how old she was, and another was laughing with her. There are always so many children on the flight so while it can be a negative at times like the child who screamed the whole way, it is also a great positive because you never have to feel self conscience if your child gets mad at some point.

Anyway... since I still have to pack for tonights crazy late flight... I'm off, but when we get back to San Diego, I will make sure to do a big update about the whole trip. :)

Cheers!