Saturday, January 09, 2010

Short

Just a few lines while I'm here, trying to rest my weary bones for a few seconds. Tonight I'm watching my cousin Ben and this house is full and noisy with 4 kids all wound up. Guess I should get used to that, huh?

Here's a link to our pictures from Christmas. I took shockingly few pictures for some reason.

Gwen had her first filling on Thursday and did great. I just love our dentist. We'll be back next week for Ethan's, then the week after for Gwen, then Ethan , then Gwen once again. I can't believe Gwen had 5 cavities and Ethan 2! I need to remember to talk about having their teeth sealed to prevent further cavities since they both have deep grooves in their teeth like I do.

Elsa has reached her "terrible twos". During our weekend in Spokane we REALLY saw it emerge. I know how to weather this... I've done it twice already. But that does not make it fun and this little one has a will and determination that I don't recall in the others. As exhausting as it is, this is the groundwork for the future years and we must be consistent and firm in guiding her. So far her favorite thing to do is shriek "MINE!" over everything or "NO!" at the gentlest suggestion or to hit me when she's angry.

Well, Ben was just picked up and I must get the kids into jammies and into bed as they are VERY tired.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

When I was a nanny, my favorite trick for children accustomed to hitting their parents and/or me was to became emotionally blank, pick them up and sit them in a corner, and cease to acknowledge them for two minutes (five minutes if they were over 4 years old).

If they left the corner, I walked over and put them back without an expression on my face and without saying a word. As many times as it took.

Oh man, one time I spent an entire hour just walking over to put a three year old back on her stool in the corner after she smacked her mom good right in front of me. There were tantrums, cries, dramatic throes upon the ground, screams that she was bleeding from her 'heart owies.' LOL.

But it works, usually anyhow. Funny how just depriving a kid of attention for a couple minutes can be so traumatic for them that they learn a lesson, lol. I wish that worked on adults sometimes.