Sunday, January 25, 2009

One little monkey jumping out of bed

Our little Emery decided she didn't want to be a baby anymore and wants to be a little monkey climbing out of her crib. I got a crib tent from a twin mom and two days later after trying to put it together, figured out it was missing two poles, so she gave me a different one that works great. Horray for the Crib Tent II. I just lay her in her bed and zip her inside her crib so she can't escape. Now she can't take all the folded pajamas out of the dresser drawer and baby wipes out of the container during naptime. Is she excited about the crib tent, no, but she only cries about 2 minutes then is quite so I don't feel too bad. She is much safer this way.

Addison and Emery must have had a meeting to decide what would drive mommy crazy. The final vote came to taking off all their clothes off (including their diaper/pull-up) even during nap time. Harper wants to sleep during naptime, so she leaves her clothes on and only takes them off if she sees Addison or Emery take their clothes off during playtime. This little phase has been going on for about a month. WHEN IS IT GOING TO END? We've tried time out and spankings, but it doesn't seem to help. During naptime today, I put all three girls in footie pajamas with zippers and backwards so they can't unzip it themselves. The footie part wasn't right of course, but they aren't going to be sleep walking so it should be okay.
It is a bit exhausting fighting with them to keep their clothes on. Why do they do this when it is winter and freezing outside? One thing that has helped if I say, "If you want your snack (or play outside), then you have to wear clothes first". They actually seem to understand and most of the time agree to get dressed again.
I don't want to safty pin their shirt to their pants because I'm afraid they would figure out how to work the pin in their frustration and get hurt.
I know this stage will pass, but I'd like to see in the future and see how much longer this is going to go on so I can deal with it.... two weeks, six months? If we only knew.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Prayers of a Five-Year-Old

I went to pick up Caden today and his teacher, Mrs. Armstrong, greets me as usual then says, "I just love having Caden in my class because he makes me laugh."
My first reaction, "Uh oh...what happened today?"
Well, Caden happily volunteered to say the prayer today before eating lunch and it went something like...

Dear God, thank you for this day, thank you for our school, thank you for our lunch, and please help us all to grow up nice so that we don't go to jail. Amen.

I told Mrs. Armstrong that was probably every preschool teacher's dream that her kids in her class don't ever go to jail.

Here is another prayer Caden had two nights ago before going to bed.

Dear God, please help Oakley (our dog) not to frown anymore. Amen.