Offended

  I wrote this blog post at 3am, and decided to post it to the blog...just in case your curious what goes through my mind in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. Here it is:

   I'm typing this with my right hand's thumb here on my phone (other hand is propping my head up in bed) in the middle of the night because I can't sleep. I shouldn't have taken that glorious 1.5 hour nap while Kyler was napping too. It's late and I'm probably going to read this in the morning and not remember a word I wrote. Oh well!

Over the past couple of months I have discovered a personality trait of mine that I want to change. A weakness. Here it is:  

                                                           I get easily offended.

Here are a few thoughts that have run through my head in the past week- All about different people.
"I can't believe ____said that to me!"
"______didn't respond to my text, call , or email. Is there anything more rude?"
"Why don't they ever invite me? Do they not like me or something?"

 For the first 20 years of my life there wasn't a single person I didn't like or get along with. You might think I'm lying, but it's true. However, these past four years things have been different. Let me clarify. I don't hate anyone. It just seems like I stopped trying to be friends with people who have offended me. I'm wondering why that is?

The problem with being easily offended is that it can ruin some friendships, and it can prevent other friendships from ever growing. If you let it. Which is absolutely ridiculous. I'm realizing now that just because a person made a mistake, doesn't mean they are a bad person, or unworthy of my friendship. I make mistakes too. Everybody does. Why would I throw away something valuable like a friendship just  because of a minor flaw that they have? Would I throw away my new leather couch if Kyler made a small scratch on it? Absolutely not! (good analogy huh? okay well it seems like a good one now. In the middle of the night...in my loopy state of mind. Go with it. Okay?)

I need to stop focusing on the little flaws that people have, and look for the good things in people! I would hate for someone to not be friends with me just because they got offended over something that is one of my flaws or something I didn't even mean to say or do.

I really believe that any two people, no matter how different they are can become really good friends! Everybody is valuable; it just takes a little some times a lot of effort from each person to forgive and forget and not let our little flaws get in the way of something good.

"To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else." -David A. Bednar

From now on I choose to not be offended. Whew, feels good to get that out of my head. Good night!

Not having enough? Or having it all?

If you concentrate on what you don't have, you'll never have enough. So pause and think about what you do have...and you'll remember you have it all.

Some moments from the past few weeks that I would like to remember:

1. Jared got Kyler a giant valentine balloon ($15!!) that sings songs when you hit it.  It popped within 48 hours, but Kyler still loves it just as much. He drags it around everywhere!

2. The sun coming through the living room window reflected a circle of light on the wall. Kyler insisted that the "coo-coo" (moon) was in our house, and went ballistic trying to touch it. I was too busy enjoying the cuteness and didn't want to miss out on any of it by leaving the room to get my phone to take a picture.

3. Kyler insisted that the whole family hold hands in the car.

4. Kyler's first time with REAL playdoh! (we have done the home-made kind before, but it's not the same)

5. I chose a chick-flic at redbox one night last week, so Jared got to choose a movie the next night. Obviously I was really focused and paying attention to what was going on in the movie.

6. This little boy is always making me smile. Why eat goldfish out of a little bowl when you could be eating them out of a giant bowl?

7. Our poor Bauer was dog abused by our 2 year old this week. We are lucky he is 90lbs tough and can take it! They are best buds.

8. This last one happened 2 weeks ago, but I just found this pic on Jared's phone so I figured I would put it on the blog, because snow in NC, is a very big deal.

That's all for now!

Mister Moon

Kyler's vocabulary is increasing (obviously he's two), but his pronunciation isn't the best. In fact, most people don't understand half of what he is says. I know I should be correcting him when he mispronounces words, and most of the time I do, but there are a few words that I can't help but love the way he says them. Here are a few of the words he says that I don't plan on correcting anytime soon:
"Sauce" (socks)
"Geek" (cute)
"Bich" (fish..I know so bad haha)
"Skuck" (stuck)
and his newest word: "Coo-coo" which means "moon"  up until now he has been calling the moon a balloon that's "skuck".

Before bed each night, we probably sing on average 5 songs. Recently he has been requesting a song that he calls the coo-coo song (actually called Mister Moon). It's a song that my mom used to sing to me! So I love that he loves it too. I found a youtube video the song. The animation is kinda cute, but her singing voice? Not-so-much. No offense to her, but I thought it was a man singing at first!

First Friend and a not-so-creepy Mom

Up until today, Kyler has been in the "parallel" stage of play meaning he would play next to other children, but not really play together with them. Today, however, Kyler ventured into the "associate" stage of play which means he started interacting with others in his play, and developed a friendship! He met his first little friend, Alex, at the park today. 

Kyler and Alex are almost exactly the same age. Something just connected between the two of them when they first saw each other. Usually Kyler ignores other kids, but he actually smiled at Alex, and ran away from me and played with him! They played toddler tag (saying "got-chu!"), helped each other down the slides, and also played their own version of hide and seek, all while giggling and talking in their toddler language that had us moms thinking "What are they saying, and how do they understand each other?" It was adorable. I would have taken a picture, but I didn't want Alex's mom to think I was a creep for taking a picture of her child, so I didn't. When it was time to go, I wanted to ask for her phone number, because honestly, this was Kyler's first friend that he actually played with and I wanted them to get together to play again sometime...buuut again, I didn't want her to think I was creepy for asking for her phone number. So I succeeded at not being a creepy stalker mom, but now Kyler will probably never see his first friend ever again.

"Friends are like four leaf clovers, hard to find and lucky to have!"

The World's First

I just saw this on a news article, and was shocked that they actually sell these!
It is the world's first: Breast Milk Baby doll

Pic

 I think this doll is a little strange, but then again, I don't have a daughter. Supposedly the child puts on an apron and when she holds the doll up to her chest it makes sucking sounds and does sucking motions. 

What do you moms with little girls think about this? Would you buy it?

Does He Understand?

  Kyler watched Finding Nemo this week. It was the third Disney movie he has sat through from start to finish! I get excited about things like this, because it's a rare thing for him to do- he typically prefers to play.  Anyways, after Nemo's mom got eaten by the shark,  Kyler turned to me and asked "Where'd she go?" I ignored him hoping he'd forget. How in the world was I supposed to explain a topic like death to my two year old? buuuut...Kyler was persistent. He planted his toddler hands on my cheeks and bore his eyes deep into my soul and repeated his question. After I told him that she had died, he said "Oh yeah. All gone" then kept watching without a flicker of emotion. I was surprised that he assumed death meant "all gone" and wondered if he knew how long that meant, and why he didn't show any emotion. This got my Child Development nerdiness and curiosity going and I began researching children's understanding of death. From what I found, toddlers understand that "dying" means to go away, but they do not understand the concept of how long until they are about 5-6 years old. Toddlers tend to react to death however they see their caretaker reacting. They sense emotions, and can tell when someone is upset.

Even though Kyler is still really young, and hasn't ever had a pet or person he knows die. It's still good to know what I should be teaching him about death at each stage of development. It is so important to be honest with kids, and to create an atmosphere of openness where they feel like they can talk to you and ask questions! If you are interested, here are a few of the links I visited on the topic:

Young children's understanding of death

Explaining death in child's terms

How children perceive death at different stages 

Valentine's Day Photo Shoot? Nailed It.

I finished a little Valentines day craft this week. I got the idea from ETSY.com. A girl was selling paper heart garland for $15. Isn't that ridiculous? Yes it is. So I decided to make some paper heart garland myself to use in the background for Kyler's Valentines photo shoot. Here is the finished heart product:

 This is one of those crafts you have fun making, but when you are finished you take a look at it...and realize it's stupid and you feel like a 7 year old, but you display it anyways. Then when a friend comes over and says she likes it you catch yourself wanting say "Thanks my kid made it." but then you realize he is two and that would be impossible. So then you want to say "Yeah, I made it in like 2 minutes." but that would be a lie because cutting out paper hearts and sewing them together is actually quite time consuming. Let alone the time it took me to iron each heart and don't get me started on the amount of time it took me to dig my sewing machine out of my preschool craft closet. So then you settle with telling your friend "Thanks, it did look a lot better, but apparently Kyler likes to crinkle paper hearts." Which is true.

Before you see Kyler's super awesome Valentines Day pics, first take a look at the pictures my sister took of my adorable niece and nephew. Aren't they perfect?!

Here is another Valentines picture she took of her friends kids. How adorable is this?!

Then here are the pictures I took of Kyler.

This is REAL LIFE:

a

I was too embarrassed to send these to my sister after the adorable ones she emailed to me. I mean how can I compete her perfect pictures?! 

Mine had paper hearts flapping all over the place in the wind, balloons all tangled together. Oh and I love how you can see my refection in the balloon (not planned). I was jumping up and down while waving my arms like a frantic lunatic trying to get Kyler to look at me and smile. Nailed it.

I finally got him to semi smile once, but then his eyes were closed. Fail.

I don't have a fancy camera (just my phone) and my pictures of  Kyler might not be perfect, but I love them. Anyway, my favorite valentines picture of him was one that I randomly snapped in the car. Totally unplanned... but he he is looking at me and smiling. It was a real moment. A real smile. And totally Kyler.

Happy Valentines week!

Pushing Pause

I woke up this morning to a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes. Jared stood above me all dressed up for work in his suit and tie. So handsome! He kissed me goodbye, as he does every morning, and I drifted off to sleep for another 20 minutes until Kyler woke up. I got Kyler out of his room and sat with him on the couch. He jumped down, and ran to play with his balloons. I made breakfast- banana, yogurt, and toast. It's a typical morning. The weeks keep flying by, and my life right now is pretty chaotic. With all of the rushing around, I sometimes forget to stop and enjoy the good things, but in order to enjoy them, they first need to be identified. So I'm going to "push pause" and highlight a few of them:

• This week I gave Kyler a huge container in the bathtub to put his toys in. He pretty much dumped all of his bathtub water onto the floor. While I was mopping up the water, Kyler had a blast with his bathtub markers. My bathroom floors are now sparkling clean. Now-onto the tub.

• House hunting. Laugh all you want, but when Jared and I find a neighborhood we like, one of the first things we do is go shopping at the nearest Walmart. This way we can get a feel for the community. This cute little walmart got an A+ with excellent customer service, short lines, clean store and friendly shoppers :)

 

• Pause- Spending time with friends. This cute pup. Three kids in a dog crate.

• A typical view of Kyler in the backseat. Pause.

•   Walking outside with Kyler at night is another moment I'm going to push pause on. He insists that the moon is a big balloon. 
• I stepped out of the room for a moment to use the restroom, and came back to this: Kyler playing with all of my clean pots and pans on the floor and a bag of popcorn completely dumped out and everywhere! Stop. Pause. Take a pic, and maybe tomorrow it will be funny. Maybe.

• After dinner is put away, family prayers are said, and Kyler is in bed. It's just me and Jared and the ice cream. The house is quiet and peaceful. Pause. Pause. Pause.

Take the time to pause and enjoy the little things you love!

"Enjoy your life for what it will become, but mostly for what it already is."- Gary Gzik

Temper Tantrums

pic link

Two weeks ago, Kyler entered a new phase. Temper tantrums. He is two years old. I was expecting this phase to come sooner or later, but I didn't realize how big of a deal tantrums really can be! Toddlers throw tantrums for various reasons: not being able to communicate, getting frustrated when something isn't working, wanting things their way, wanting to be with parents instead of nursery, and these reasons seem to amplify if the toddler is tired, hungry, or wants more attention.

In the Child Development classes I took in college, we studied tantrums: heightened emotions cause a  hormone to be released known as the "fight or flight" hormone which can lead to abnormal responses.  I know tantrums are a normal part development, but I never thought that my own child would have them (silly mom thinking).  Being frustrated at his stage in life is unavoidable while he is still learning how to speak and express his feelings, but in the mean time we have found several tactics that help Kyler get over his temper tantrums more quickly. Some of them include: distraction, extra attention, and prevention...but the method that seems to work best with Kyler at this stage is time-out.

We remove him from the situation and have him sit in a chair and fold his arms. We tell him why he was behaving the way he was (to help him understand his emotions) and tell him how he should behave next time it happens (ask mommy/daddy for help). When he has calmed down (usually 2 minutes or less) we have him apologize and we give him hugs for comfort. That's it! After a time-out he is back to being his happy little self!

It can be very frustrating and upsetting as a mom to watch my little boy that I love so much throw nasty temper tantrums. Sometimes it's hard to remain calm (especially if it is in public or in front of friends/ family) but I just have to remind myself that today he is two, and before I know it he will be grown! I need to be the best mommy that I can be now so that he can grow into a charming young man (just like his daddy) later in life.