My DD started HATING solids several weeks ago, after having done well with them since starting. Sometimes she missed an entire meal, which at this point isn't a big deal. Lots of her bottles went unfinished also. Lo and behold, a tooth finally broke through the gum a little more than a week ago, and the second one the next day. So she has 2 teeth- one is about 1/3 in and the other is like barely out of the gum. Since they broke through, she's resumed eating and drinking bottles normally, except when she'd rather still play or spit her food all over us because it's funny :)

My pedi confirmed that teething can make them not want to eat much if at all, and they might want bottles or pacis more often for the sucking (apparently it's soothing to the gums? seems like it'd be the opposite...).

Arcain - you can put the lego's in a gallon of water with about a tablespoon of bleach. That's enough to kill any bacteria. Just rinse off and let dry.

Most of the lego duplos I have said 18 month and up. My son got really frustrated trying to put them together before about 2 years old. DD was better at it, but even she had a hard time at the beginning. Once they get the hang of it they can be really fun. We build all kinds of things with our Lego's. We also got the Zoo set with all the fun animals. The thing I like the most is that Lego's seem to entertain DH as well - so I can keep all three busy and get something else done (like dinner!).

Happy playtime.

Arcain: Does your LO play with other kids and share toys with other kids?  My point being, I wouldn't worry about sterilizing secondhand blocks because it's really the same as sharing them with other kids.  Personally, I'd prefer LO get a little dirt in their mouth rather than lysol residue!  If they are dusty or have a bit of dirt on them I'd use a wet paper towel or a baby wipe.  HTH!

CLC-hope you're feeling better!

Well, ME day turned into a WE day. DD and I hung out. About half way through the day I determined she could have gone to school and been fine, but always better to keep her home. So we had a fun girl day. And thankfully my stylist was available at night for my cut and color-a compromise. Always so tough to cancel that rare Mommy time!

Mislily-how is your Mom doing? It's really tough to balance out the caring for a parent and your own children-being there for everyone and not killing yourself. Thoughts are with you.

Thanks KAM. She's having chemo treatments right now, but she's handling them fairly well.

I did make my dad hire the Visiting Angels which has taken some of the pressure off. Of course the oncologist changed a chemo treatment from Wednesday to today and my parents forgot to tell the Angel. She called me in a panic because no one was answering the door. (sigh) so now he'll have to pay her because he didn't cancel. Oh well.

Glad you got to the hairdresser - I always feel better once my roots are done! :)

Just had my first duel tantrum. We went to the grocery store. They didn't want to ride in the double carriage, they wanted to walk. I told them they had to stay with me and hold onto the cart. Of course they walked away. So I rounded them up and explained that they had to stay with me or we were leaving. They walked away immediately. so I rounded them up and marched them out of the store. They screamed bloody murder all the way through the parking lot and in the car. It took me about 10 minutes just to get DS into the car seat. It was like an episode of Supernanny. They cried and screamed all the way home, "No Mama - turn around, we want to go to the store!!!"  Huge racking sobs from the back seat all the way home. The ones where you have to stop to breathe, so you can start up all over again. All I can say is I hope it accomplishes something. I've been having trouble getting them to behave lately. They usually come around with a warning, but this time I had to pull the plug. I must say, I found the whole thing exhausting.

misslily-I found DS as he got closer to 4 years old his behavior started to improve, but then every few weeks things would just go down hill. We'd have to really put our foot down about something and that would snap him back in a few days to his normal self. As though as it was on everyone, it did send a message they clearly got!

I hate those times when I basically have to sit on my LO's to get them buckled into the car seat.

MissLily - I feel for you. About a month ago DD and I were at the T station waiting for the bus. She didn't want to sit in the stroller, so I said she could get out, but had to stay nearby. She took off down the busway, and I went after her, but with the stroller, gym bags, and being 5.5 months pregnant, wasn't exactly sprinting top speed. I caught up to her, and had to forcibly seat her and strap her into her stroller, while she screamed and cried and arched her back, etc. I walked her back to where we were waiting, and when she stopped crying enough to listen, I told her that she was in the stroller because she wasn't listening to me, and what she did was dangerous.  I told her that she had to stay strapped in until we got on the bus, and that was a consequence of not listening.

On the plus side, since then, she has been much better about staying close when I tell her, and I have only had to remind her that not listening means being strapped into the stroller once. She was even good about staying close when we couldn't bring the stroller because of all the snow the last two weeks, despite her prefering to walk in the snow versus staying on the "mostly" shoveled sidewalks.

Thanks guys. I figure I've got to go through a few of these episodes to get the message across. They are basically good kids, but I do feel like they misbahave more than other kids I see in public. They are exuberant and friendly so they want to run up to babies and say hi, and they aren't shy about running over to see something that interests them. I was REALLY shy as a kid and always stayed close to mom and did what she said. I'm thrilled they don't have the debilitating shyness I suffered from, but their behavior is so foreign to me that I sometimes find it really hard to understand why they can't just follow instructions once in a while.

 

And, misslily, I do think having 2 the same age is harder because IF one was feeling tempted but still holding firm and being good, he/she could do self-talk to keep him/her focused "I need to stay close to Mummy, that's the rule" and there would be nobody to tempt him/her to disobey (except for the cool cat over there, the interesting bunny in the window, the escalator over there).  BUT with 2 of them, even if one is feeling tempted but could have stayed still, having the other one who actually does break away, well, THAT's too much of a temptation to not go for it.
(did that make any sense at all?) 

And there are just some kids who are more compliant (for whatever reason) and others who are less so.  That'll probably be a great thing later in elementary school, but right now it's frustrating.

But good for you for sticking to your guns, because what you are asking is important for safety.  the other frustrating thing is that, with one, you might have felt it was ok for that one to stray a little way away because you could push the cart and keep your eye on ONE.  BUT with two (and I'm sure they go 2 different ways, lol) you can't push a cart, not run anyone over, get the food into the grocery store and keep your eyes on 2 going 2 different ways.  Just not possible.  So you must naturally ask/request/insist on them staying closer or holding onto the cart, or whatever, simply to be safe.  And that's hard, but not impossible, for them to learn. 

But I can imagine how tiring it is, the emotional turmoil you feel when they cry like that, and the fact that you are sure others are looking at you as they make a scene (which is a double scene).  If you were shy as a child, that attention might be harder now.

Just know that the people you SAW you set the limit and then follow through are thinking "good job, lady, that's right!" even though they aren't saying it.

Now that it's over, I hope you can think of it as a wee bit funny, as I sit here thinking of them in their carseats having to take a breath to keep on crying, I'll admit I'm smilling a wee bit.

CT - Thanks. I want to thank you for always handing out the best, and kindest advice to all of us here at BDC. Yours is a wonderful voice of reason - so calm and soothing and kind. The families at your center don't know how lucky they are to have you.

I was astounded this afternoon to find that while I was getting the laundry out of the basement my two little rascals had jumped the gate and gone into my cat's room. She's 16, and dislikes them so she has her own space. I have a baby gate set so she can crawl under if she wants to, but they aren't supposed to be able to get in. They climbed over yesterday and I scolded them and shooed them out. The fact that they were back in there today less than an hour after the grocery store incident was unbelieveable! As I was coming up the stairs I heard, "Here comes Mama, hide under the desk!" I have to say it made me laugh.

But what to do, what to do, with Thing One and Thing Two? I wish I knew.

Hmmm.... you didn't ask for a solution for Thing One and Thing Two, but here goes, for what it's worth:

the trick (they say) about discipline is that the "punishment" has to fit the "crime" - another way to say it is that there needs to be natural consequences.  You act up in the grocery store, you get taken out of said grocery store, stuffed in carseats and taken home (and, tomorrow, when they want popsicles, or fish crackers or whatever you were there to buy, you can say to them well, we went to the grocery store yesterday to buy fish crackers for snack, but you didn't listen to Mama and we had to leave. so now you don't have fish crackers. - you can only do this the next day, not for days on end)  More natural consequences. You wouldn't take away tv time for grocery store misbehavior, as that doesn't make sense.

And you should go to the grocery store tomorrow so they have a chance to try again, while today's memory of carseat stuffing still lives in their memories.  

So what are the natural consequences for climbing over that gate to get to kitty?  I'd say from now on (unless this is a punishment for you, then don't do it) they must walk downstairs with you to get the laundry and carry it up.  yeah, I know, they don't WANT to go down those stairs and then turn around and come right back up.  The stairs are steep (believe me, if they can climb over a gate, onto the counters, and out of their cribs they can walk up and down steep stairs - it will do them good to figure it out and focus), it's cold down there, it's a bit dark in the corners.  Well, remember when Mama asked you to stay upstairs and not bother kitty but you went into her room? Well, now Mama needs to see you so you must go downstairs with her.  Maybe NEXT time you can stay upstairs, we'll have to see. And then you follow through.  And when go down and come up, each carrying 3 socks, you say good job, thank you for helping Mama.

Otherwise, iif taking them up and down stairs is too horrible for you to imagine (and it might be) then... they disobeyed, so they get a timeout on the stairs - one at the top, the other at the bottom.  Or one on the stairs and one on a stool in the kitchen. I don't know what's best, but they are not to sit together, because then it's playing and snuggling time, not "thinking about what you did wrong" time.  Because sometimes you just need a punishment, swift and direct, to impress upon them, and there isn't any natural consequence. 

Also helping them to understand the WHY of the gate might help - remember, kitty is old and she has a hard time with us because she gets tired, so she gets her own bedroom.  You have your bedroom, and that's kitty's bedroom.  Can they sometimes go in under your direct supervision to pet kitty and feed her treats (my cats LOVE greenies dental treats) so that she isn't so much the forbidden fruit, but rather an old kitty who is so special that they are gentle (under direct supervision?).  Can they make pictures for kitty and hang them in her bedroom to decorate them?  This way she is more part of their family than "Mama's cat that doesn't matter to us except we really want to touch her 'cuz we can't".

Good you could smile at the "hide under the desk so Mama can't see" - I'm sure that was said in a LOUD voice, too! 

On the other hand, wow, their language sounds really amazing - pretty cool for children with hearing loss, huh?  Are they clear to strangers? Do they seem to be able to hear people who speak to them in the stores with their aids in?  Does it seem like they have to "learn" how to "use" them or is that something that is natural once you wear them for a while?  It's interesting to me.

You know, I've never asked, do they look alike or do they look completely different, like one favors you while the other favors your husband?  We have a family where the older one looks JUST like his father, while the baby looks JUST like Mom.   We have another family who use our backup program with (wait for it) FOUR children, all BOYS (kill me now): ages 5, 3 and 8 month old TWINS.  Again, kill me now.  Twin 1 looks like the 3 year old and Twin 2 looks like the 5 year old.  Totally fraternal.  Of course, the parents named all 4 with names that start with the same letter, so I just call them all the same name, it's impossible!  And they both work fulltime, I don't know how they do it! (well, with an au pair, poor kid, I'm sure he doesn't know WHAT hit him!)

The basement is no punishment. They LOVE it down there. They want to put the soap in the washer, take the lint out of the dryer, dive into the boxes of "baby toys" that are going to the church sale this Spring. I do try to enforce the "natural punishment" and I said to my DH last night that I wasn't sure what it should be for climbing the kitty gate. We'll have to think of something. Time outs have always been a nightmare. I can't get both of them to sit still, much less one! And since I have your attention...what's the punishment for unrolling all the TP? Can't very well restrict potty use. I ended up taking it off the dispenser and putting it out of his reach - but that's not really helpful to DD or anyone else.

She's tall and "dirty blonde" like me. Has blue eyes like her grandfathers. He's a skinny kid with reddish brown hair and brown eyes - like daddy. She has a rounder face too. They actually look like "irish twins" (12 months apart) because she's gotten so much bigger this year! They really are "just a brother and sister born on the same day."

And thank the lord they seem to do well with or without the aids. He's still got speech delay but it's getting better all the time.

Thanks again CT!!!

Trouble, good point. DS is in daycare so plays with lots of kids and toys. I may wash them as others suggested just to get rid of dust (they had been stored awhile and I'mhorribly allergic to dust) but I won't freak over it.

MissLily, all I can say is keep up the good work. As DS approaches toddlerhood I'm getting anxious about introducing and following through on consequences, and the grocery store thing is a great example of doing that. Of course it was miserable for you, but you followed through where probably a majority of parents would give up, and hopefully that will pay off in future. Hang in there!

We had DS's first birthday party yesterday. It was a bit late bc DH's grandpa died last week and the funeral was the day we'd originally planned the party for. It was really nice for his family to have a happy event to look forward to, and it could not have gone better. We both have huge families so we stuck to just our parents, my SIL and BIL and their kids, and DH's grandmother. dS smiled and laughed all afternoon and loved playing with his big cousins, loved his dinner and cake, and made the best "WTF?" face ever when we gave him a bite of ice cream. Sappiness alert: the day just made me so grateful for our family and happy that DS can bring so much joy to everyone. This was the first time DH's grandma left the house since her husband (of 66 years, can you imagine?)died, and I think it brought her genuine joy to be there with her great grand kids romping around. Feeling very fortunate today!

...it's March 3.

Kar - what's your point? It is against the rules to finish a conversation on the February thread because it's now March? :)

we're always in a conversation...  It's weird enough that the childless freak posts, but to almost always be the one to start the new month threads, now that's just creepy.