Sunday, September 30, 2007

I Think I'm Hearing "NO!" In My Sleep...oh no wait, that's just Charlie yelling from his crib.

Woah, is it almost October already? What happened!? Guess I'm already getting lazy with this blog... a good representation of most other things in my life. :)

Well, I have figured out a few things over the past couple of weeks:

1. Yelling, "NO! WE DON'T SAY NO!" to your child who says "NO" too much is not a very effective method.
2. Ditto with the grabbing-things-from-other-kids problem...grabbing something out of your child's hand after he has just grabbed it from another child's hand and saying, "We don't grab!" is not effective, either...your child will just look at you and then look at the grabbed item in your guilty hand like, "Oh, really, mom? We don't grab?"
3. Getting visibly angry, upset or frustrated only seems to encourage bad behavior even more.
4. Repeat # 1. Ooops.
5. Man, our child is stubborn!
6. Begging and pleading for good behavior and/or manners is futile.
7. Bad behavior is much worse when the child is teething - something I realized right after I wrote that last blog, when I looked into Charlie's mouth and saw four huge teeth emerging through red, swollen gums.
8. Even when they are "naughty", they are the sweetest, most amazing blessings in our lives - 1 spontaneous kiss makes up for 20 tantrums and 1 "fly-by" hug erases the memories of 10 wiggly diaper-changing wars.
9. I could not possibly love him any more than I do, and I thank God for him, "NO's" and all.

Really, though, things have gotten better. For the most part, we've gotten our sweet little boy back. I suppose the rest can be expected at this age, and we'll just have to keep working on "re-teaching" him the right ways to behave. The past few mornings, we have woken up to the sound of him in his crib saying, "NO! No. No. NO. NO! No." To himself. For no reason at all. Totally unprovoked. Fun times.

By the way, thanks for all the encouraging words at church this morning! I can't believe how many of you Cornerstone folks read our blog. What an awesome church family we have!!!

Well, what else have we been up to the past few weeks? Hmmm....

Hanging out in the pots and pans cupboard:

The creation of the "Big Kids Table":

Cheap Carnival Rides:



Hanging out & eating pizza with the cousins:

Finally finding a way to get Charlie to drink his milk (a big shout-out to whoever the genius is that invented the "curly straw"!):


The wonderfulness of backpacks!

(Yes, Blake's "backpack" happens to be a purple-colored, baby-doll bassinet-thingy, but he didn't know the difference - hey, if it hangs off of your back and makes you feel like a super cool big boy, it's a backpack...)

Playing in the rocks:

Fun baths:

Blake gets a little too wild and splashy for Charlie's liking:

Lots of dance parties:


By the way, I've got some AWESOME footage of Shawn's dance skills, but I don't know if I'd get away with posting it on here...
...oh, what's that you say? You want to see it? Really? Okay, well maybe just one short clip, a teaser" let's call it. I'm sure he won't mind...

And if you enjoyed that one, wait until you see his breakdancing moves!

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2 comments:

Wilson Family said...

Ok, I am completly convinced that you have WAY more fun at the Flether/Miller household then we do! When can we move in??

P.S. Glad to see the kids are diversified in their dance music! =)

tim|helen|adia|kalanie|rilanna said...

love to see shawn dancing... it makes me smile to know that i can still out-move him any day...