Thank you, Miss Kim!

My deepest thanks to my favorite toddler wrangler for giving me some excellent tips this week.  She may have retired for the next few baby-making years, but Miss Kim is my go-to gal for advice on my terrorist... I mean toddler.

He just had his second birthday and got a multitude of toy sets with a million pieces each.  When sitting in the middle of his hurricane wondering how on Earth I was going to organize it all on a zero-dollar budget, Miss Kim suggested that I use my clear shoe containers (I have a million of them) to group and organize each set in an easy-to-stack, easy-to-view way.  Brilliant!  Now, it is much easier for him to choose what he would like to play with and for him to know where to put things away when I'm choosing my battles to win the war.

Today, I told Miss Kim about his temper tantrums.  I'm sure every other mother of a young two year old thinks the same as I do, but - man - his fits are horrible!  He even sniffs of the possibility that he isn't going to get his way and the screaming starts.  I don't know what exactly has possessed my happy little baby over the past couple of weeks, but this little demon can't be stopped once he gets going.

Miss Kim explained about the ABCs of temper taming.  A is the antecedent or what sets him off (aka not getting his way).  B is the behavior or his reaction (aka the screaming and kicking fit).  C is the consequence or how I will react.  That's the kicker.  The million dollar question.  What do I do??

First, I need to reign in my own temper.  Hey, he gets his somewhere, and it is not all from his father.  After taking a deep breath and taking stock of my ABCs, I have decided to set aside a "Time Out" station for him to sit at until he is finished crying.  I explain to him calmly that he isn't to move until he is finished crying, then I ignore him.

If he decides he wants to move before he is finished crying, I stand above him and force him to stay until he is finished.  Talk about a battle of wills!  Sometimes it becomes a true standoff, but I try to win the majority of the time.  Eventually, I'm hoping that he gets the whole concept of time out and tries to avoid it as much as possible.

Miss Kim also suggested an egg timer to give him a concrete end goal.  "When the timer dings, you may get up."  Anything to help him realize that his behavior isn't going to get him the reaction he wants.  Maybe the egg timer is really for me...

Once again, BRILLIANT, Miss Kim!  Thank you.

Fine Motor Skills My A...nkle

My infamous cousin, Miss Kim to you, only recently gave up her illustrious, 7-year child wrangling career to be a full-time, stay-at-home mommy.  (She's the one that works(ed) at a prestigious preschool and has all kinds of degrees to back her authority up.)  The old cliche (those things I gladly admit I usually butcher) that old habits die hard (take that, Miss Kim, I got it right!) was coined for her in this instance.

She has been after me... I mean gently encouraging me... for a while to start working with the monster on his fine motor skills.  So, I bought a water table for the porch and some non-water items to fill it with.  I have water, of course, to go in it on hot summer days, but I also purchased a boatload of beans and rice to help with his sensory development.  [Side Note: his former daycare nearly amputated two of his fingertips, so the hand specialist recommended the same thing to stimulate the continuation of nerve regrowth.]  The other day, I wanted to work on an invitation package that I plan to post to my Etsy store very soon, so I figured this was the perfect time to try out the beans.

I brought the water table in the house, cleaned it up, and stationed it in the open area behind my computer workspace.  The monster danced around me, vibrating with excitement, as I poured in the beans and got him measuring cups then dove in with all the vigor he usually reserves for milk.  Ah, blessed peace for hours while I focus on my work.  I quickly snapped a picture to send to Miss Kim to prove how good a mommy I am then turned back to my work.  Sigh.  This is the life - work and play all at the same time!

Then I heard the sound of many (many) little beans hitting and bouncing (far) off the tile floor.  Ugh.  I stopped to help him pick them up then showed him how to keep his activities over the table to avoid spilling again.  Yeah, great idea, Lis.  That worked for all of 30 seconds.  Then I had to stop again.  And again.  And again.

The texts to Miss Kim went from "Awww, isn't he cute?" to "Fine motor skills, my a$$.  This crap is going everywhere and making me realize just how dirty my floor is!" to "I can't take any more of this crap.  Even the towels I put down aren't stopping the flow of bouncing beans.  It's time to clean up!!!" to "Is this [censored] supposed to develop my [censored] motor skills or his?  I'll be picking up beans for months.  I'm not even trying rice... or oatmeal... or wet flour.  You're CRAZY!"

Hindsight being 20/20 (Ha, ha!  I got that one right, too!), I probably shouldn't have expected him to play neatly without direct supervision AND I probably should have done it on the porch as originally planned so the mess wasn't an issue.  Miss Kim 1, Mommy 0

TV Rots Your Brains

I'm sitting here practicing the fine art of dish washing avoidance by adding items to my CafePress store and reading community forums when a posting sparked a cute memory.  Thus, this posting to you.  I don't rightly remember what the insignificant thing that sparked the funny memory was, but I do remember the memory and, yes, I am going to share.  But, first, the back story.

I recently read several articles detailing why children under the age of two should not be exposed to television including the link to ADD, lower language and visual motor skills, obesity, sleep disturbances, lazy parenting and a plethora of other ill effects.  (If you don't believe me, google toddler television watching and see what pops up.)

Upon reading these articles and realizing that I let my one-and-a-half-year-old son watch upwards of... well, I'm not admitting how many hours of television he watched... I made the decision to cut him back to one to two hours per day, at the most, including what is watched on the DVD player in my mom's SUV.  In my own defense, I thought having it on as background noise would serve as the same sort of background noise he would hear at daycare or school.  I was wrong.  See?  I can admit it.

I always saw those parents that had portable DVD players in restaurants or any handheld electronic device in public - aka portable babysitters - and judged them as lazy parents without the attention span to watch or discipline their own children.  Having actually popped a kid out and come to the understanding of basic survival skills required to obtain a minute to yourself, my judgement has lifted a bit, but I still don't wan to be that mom.  (I haven't changed my mind on child leashes, though.)

On weekdays, that time limit always includes Sesame Street since he responds very well to the lessons taught in that action-packed hour; on weekends, it includes my personal favorite of Phineas and Ferb by Disney.  Selfish, I know, but a mom's gotta live, too.

So what's the funny story, you ask?  In the past two weeks of the new regime, my son has started "talking" more and picking up on general human mannerisms... including pointing at the television and asking, "Please, Mom?"