Lessons Learned: Temper Tantrums

Do you have a strong willed toddler like we do? Up until Sydney was seven months old, she would fuss briefly when she didn’t get her way, but was easily distracted. Then suddenly we experienced her first real temper tantrum – over wanting a popsicle. She was tired, and probably hungry, and started to fuss while we were fixing dinner. It escalated from fussing to a screaming fit when we tried to get her to sit down and have dinner. We let her know that once she ate with us, she could have a popsicle and go outside, but instead she decided to hold onto the freezer door, jump up and down and cry hysterically.

We learned many lessons in that 15 minutes:

1. Ignoring the tantrum didn’t help at all, but sitting down beside her didn’t seem to help either, nor did carrying her back over to the table to try to get her to eat.
2. Letting her know that we understood exactly what she wanted did not make her feel any better about the situation.
3. She can work herself up so much that she throws up (though it appeared to be mostly phlegm).
4. I wish we’d never let her try a popsicle, or a piece of candy, or a cashew for that matter (she always wants one, but then spits chunks of it out all over the floor), or anything else she pitched a fit over, even though I know that’s only a temporary solution.
5. And most importantly, she needs to be taken far away from whatever she’s coveting.

As soon as we finished with dinner, Chris took her outside (without a popsicle needless to say), and although she fussed a bit when she came back in, she did not touch the freezer again and was happy as can be by bath time. 

Funny how much easier it is for kids to forget the tirades than it is for their parents.

Lessons Learned Recap: Tantrums will happen. All you can do is ride out the storm and figure out the best approach to shorten their duration.

5 Ideas for Celebrating Father’s Day for the Fertility Challenged

My wife and I barreled through three Mother’s and Father’s Days while we were trying to get pregnant. I decided they should be fun, celebration days instead of the alternative, which was moping around, stewing with frustration by our lack of success.

Here are five ideas for celebrating Father’s Day weekend for the fertility challenged:

1. Celebrate with your father, father-in-law or grandfather and make the day about them. Gleefully ignore any comments they may make about having your own kids. 
2. Choose the antithesis of a Father’s Day celebration. Take your significant other to the movies, followed by a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant where children are not likely to be out in numbers. Or if they are, act like a child right along with them and join in their merriment.
3.  Do what other fathers with young kids can’t typically do! See a favorite band. Hop on a plane to watch your favorite baseball team, the College World Series or the NBA Finals. Climb a mountain. Jump out of a plane. Swim with sharks. Okay, maybe that's not such a great idea. But you get the idea.
4. Borrow a kid for a couple hours (a niece/nephew or friend's kid), pop some popcorn and watch a kids' movie you haven’t seen since you were little. Little Big League, Big, ET, Star Wars, Goonies or any Disney movie.
5. Call it “Hopeful-Father-To-Be-Day” and celebrate just like the rest of the dads in the world.   

How Long Does It Take to Conceive?

When we first started trying to get pregnant, I searched for research on how long I should expect it to take. The numbers vary by age, but a study published in the journal, Human Reproduction, followed women who were trying to get pregnant by having sex at the time in their monthly cycle when they were believed to be most fertile.

"Of the 346 women in the study, 310 conceived in the first year. 38 percent were pregnant after 1 month. 68 percent were pregnant after 3 months. 81 percent were pregnant after 6 months. 92 percent were pregnant after 12 months."

We were with the 8% anomalies, still trying after 12 months. And 24 months. And 36 months... 

 

Do You Have a Sensitive Child?

Sensitive? Emotional? Hard to Calm? Our oldest daughter, Sydney, seems to be "wired" this way. Here are some examples of her super-sensitivity:

1. From the day she was born, she cried whenever she saw or heard anyone else crying.
2. You know how when most kids cry, they release some kind of chemical that makes them settle down and sleepy (why "Cry It Out" works so well)? Sydney is one of the 5% of kids who have the opposite reaction to crying. She gets more, and more, and more riled up until she nearly throws up. Needless to say, Cry It Out did not work for her, while it was perfect for her younger sister and brother.
3. When she was eight months old, I bought her the cute book, Goodnight Gorilla. She started sobbing as soon as the zookeeper's wife took the animals back to the zoo. After that, she'd shook and cried if she even saw the cover. We hid the book on the bottom of a drawer. Six months later, she spotted it on the shelves at a bookstore. She grabbed every one off the shelf and threw them on the floor. There were several other children's books over the years that followed that made her too sad to look at.
4. She was two the first time she heard the song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Giant teardrops ran down her cheeks.
5. When her SIBLINGS get a shot at the doctor's office, Sydney cries longer and harder than they do. When SHE gets a shot, she's still crying an hour later.
6. She came home from Kindergarten the other day and said she'd just seen the saddest movie ever. Charlotte's Web. I asked her why, and she exclaimed, "Everything in it is sad! They take the pig away from his family and he's lonely. They want to kill it. And worst of all, Charlotte dies in the end!" She was still thinking about it before bed that night, so it took her two hours to fall asleep.
7. She can go from saying it is the "Best Day Ever!" to exclaiming it is the "Worst Day Ever!" in less than 30 seconds.
8. When she was upset recently, she squeezed her neck so tight that there were finger marks on her skin the next day. If I hadn't been with her the whole weekend, I would have worried someone had tried to strangle her.
9. Her dad made the mistake of saying he would be in heaven someday. Sydney was up until 10pm that night crying, wanting to know how she was going to be able to find him in heaven. He had to come up with a solution (a special key to help her find him) before she would settle down and go to sleep.
10. It's not just her mind that's sensitive - her body appears to be super sensitive too. In the past six months, I can't recall a day without some kind of ailment - a headache, a stomach ache, her throat hurting, her tooth hurting, her ears hurting, her toe burning, etc., etc.

Sydney's life is like a roller-coaster ride. One minute she can be the happiest child on earth, the next she can spend an hour in tears over having to take a bath, or her sister being mean, or not wanting to run laps at school the next day. You never know what will set her off, but she finds a way to let something upset her at least once a day.

We've accepted that a "crisis" will happen daily, which I think is half the battle. Now we're just trying to find a way to help her out of sensitivity funk when she gets in it...

Kid Favorites: A Great Book Series for Toddlers in the Car

This is our favorite book series to have in the car for times when we're waiting and need entertainment. Sydney (5), Sabrina (3) and Luke (2) all love them. Sabrina has looked at the "Animals to Spot" version every day this year while we waited for Sydney's school pick-up, without ever tiring of it.  

While I was snagging this picture for the blog, I decided to buy four more. 1001 Things to Spot in the Sea, 1001 Things to Spot on Vacation and 1001 Things to Spot in Fairyland and 1001 Things to Spot on the Farm. I had to buy some of these of used, as they're not all still in print. 

Now if I could just figure out how to avoid them fighting over which one they want...

Kid Favorites: Swimming with Dolphins

A couple of years ago, Sydney’s favorite animals were dolphins and whales. I don’t remember how it got started, but like the other animal favorites before – goats, deer and rhinos – this fetish lasted a while. We enjoyed two months of Sydney playing exclusively with her dolphin and whale friends for tea parties, in the bath, to bring on adventures, to talk to, etc. I loved to listen to her talking to them. “Here’s your tea. Don’t worry, I have another fish for you!”

So when we booked our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii a couple summers ago, the first place Michelle called was DolphinQuest to reserve a spot for Sydney to swim with the dolphins. 

Sydney enjoyed everything but the dolphin splashing her in the face and the fact that, when it was over, she had not actually gotten to “swim” with the dolphins. When the class was over, she cried for 10 minutes, feeling very cheated. Even though we’d prepared her for how short it was going to be, and she'd watched the other classes every day for a week before it was her turn, she obviously expected something completely different than what she got, which was to pet the dolphin, feed him some fish and shake his fin.

Still, she said she'd do it again, so it's officially a "favorite" in my mind.

What are some of your kids' favorite adventures?

Parent Tips: Cleaning Up the Toys

When you have young kids, it's impossible to keep the house clean all day long. Here are the strategies we've adopted to keep our sanity and avoid breaking our ankles on stray toys:

1. When our kids are ready to move on to "the next thing," they need to clean up the activity they've just finished first. As I type this, our 3yo has every art item out on her office table - markers, paper, hole punch, scissors, tape, glue, old business cards, stamps, stamp pads, gift boxes and a bucket (not sure what the bucket is for?). When she's ready for Legos or puzzles or to jump outside on the trampoline, everything needs to go back in its place first. Using the Love and Logic enforceable statements, we say, "You can [go outside] as soon as you've cleaned up the [art supplies that are out on the table]."
2. Clean up time is at 5pm every day. We sing, "It's time to put the toys away, toys away, toys away. It's time to put the toys away. Where are all my helpers?" (a song we learned at Sydney's first preschool). Everyone helps get the house in order and then we head to the kitchen to make dinner. If the kids complain that they don't want to clean up, that's fine! I reply, "I only charge $1 to clean up the mess for you." Every once in a while I actually get a taker, but usually that spurs them into action.
3. Once all the kids are in bed, I go back through the house and put away anything else that's been left out (sippy cups, books, etc.) so that we end and start the day with a relatively clean house. Unless I'm totally out of energy. Then I just close my eyes, imagine what it would look like clean, and head to bed.

What tricks do you have to keep your house tidy?

Explaining Memorial Day To My Children

Kids are insatiably curious. Mine easily ask fifty questions a day and I’m sure Memorial Day will be no exception. So trying to be prepared for once, I started thinking about what to say to my five-year-old daughter when she asks what the holiday is all about. 

What will I tell her? Most people celebrate the holiday to kick off summer, with backyard barbecues or a day at the beach. How many pause to think about what it means? To remember all of the men and women who have served and died for our country.

But ultimately, I started to think on a deeper level (I do that on rare occasions), about honoring the people who have given their lives for justice and freedom. Is there a connection between living souls and those of the dead? If we thank them on this day, do they know it? Do they feel it somehow, this rush of emotions from millions of people? 

So my answer to my children, when they ask, will be that we celebrate the day because we want to pay tribute to the people who sacrificed their lives for a better world. And I hope that their souls, wherever they are, can feel our gratitude.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRIOTISM

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COURAGE

THANK YOU FOR YOUR STRENGTH

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICE

Kidcations

Time to plan summer vacation. (Yes, I know, many of you planned months and months ago and gobbled up all the best condos. You are probably smiling with glee, just thinking about your perfect 3BR right on the ocean. We procrastinators despise each and every one of you.)

Here are the reasons I do not consider traveling with young kids a vacation:

1. My idea of a vacation is to relax in a hammock on a beach reading a book. Try doing that with a 5, 3 and 1-year-old and see how many pages you can read before (a) there are children yelling or pulling each other's hair, (b) someone crawls up on your lap and puts their big head in the way of your book, or (c) your toddler is eating sand or choking on a seashell. I think my record is two and a half pages uninterrupted.
2. I forgot two important words in #1 above. It should have read: "My idea of a vacation is to relax in a hammock on a beach reading a book IN SILENCE." And it's impossible to have silence unless all three kids are asleep, which only happens in tiny chunks of time in the middle of the night...if I'm lucky.
3. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Another ideal. Another benefit you give up with three children under six.
4. Massages? Only if other tiny feet stepping on you or elbows and knees crawling across your stomach counts. At least I don't have to pay outrageous spa fees for those.
5. Easy travels. No additional information needed for those of you who've been on a plane with young children. 

Yes, I know. There are wonderful moments to be shared and fun to be had on adventures with your kids. Yada, yada, yada. I am not arguing the merits of a family trip. I'm only pointing out that it is not, in fact, a vacation, and I refuse to call it one.

So, until my husband (who travels and gets a lot of time away from the kids) decides he actually wants to go on a trip just the two of us, I will have to settle for the summer kidcations and beg for an hour a day break where I can disappear and nobody can find me.