The Daddy Book

There's a really cute Dr. Seuss book called The Belly Book. It basically talks about all kinds of bellies, human, animal, big, small, etc. Zachary loves the book and we read it often at bedtime. He gets a chuckle out of talking about bellies period. Yesterday morning after he woke up, he wanted to come lay in bed with me for awhile. So we laid there while David was getting dressed, when Zach pointed to David's belly and said "Daddy belly!" David patted himself on the belly and we talked about how we'd read the Belly Book the night before. Zach sat quiet staring at David's stomach for a few seconds, wheels turning in his mind as usual. Then he said, matter of factly, The Daddy Book! haha we all go such a good laugh out of that. Funny thing is ...David's been going to the gym for months!

Bed pictures

Although we still don't have the wagon canopy complete, I'm putting up a few big boy bed photos. We threw up a down comforter to get a feel for how it's going to look, but it wasn't nearly big enough.

Not cute enough?

So yet another story surfaces today about the Chinese not telling the whole truth about something. Yesterday we found out that the fireworks in the opening ceremony were "digitally enhanced" for the television viewing audience...read FAKE! Now today a story surfaces that the 7-year-old girl whose voice was deemed the best was not allowed to sing the national anthem for the ceremony because she was not cute enough. That's just freaking ridiculous. I saw a photo of her and she's a sweet, innocent looking child. But the chinese officials said her teeth were crooked and they thought the national audience would understand what they had to do. So....they chose a "prettier" girl and made her lip-sync to the "ugly" girls voice. OH MY GOSH, that just infuriates me. The "ugly" girl said she understood and it was an honor for her voice to be used in the games...WHATEVER. Imagine that poor child's self esteem struggle. Imagine how crappy that must've made her parents feel. I don't know about you, but if someone ever tells me Zach's not cute enough for something, Nelly bar the door!

Moving up and moving on...the big boy bed

First of all, shout out to Ralph Goreham - one of THE most talented carpenters in Lexington. Soon I'll have a picture of his final product to show you guys. He's done his part, now I just have to finish his masterpiece.

Zachary loves everything to do with cowboys and horses; he has been to the Boot Store one time and that was to get his John Deere cowboy boots. His memory is so good regarding that experience that he can point to the Boot Store when we drive by and talk about his boots. He loves polo shirts because they have "horsies" on them. He rides, feeds and pets his two rocking horses. He has a cowboy figurine that he sometimes puts by his plate at mealtime so he can "feed the hungry cowboy. Maybe I've sort of forced him into this obsession since I decorated his nursery in retro western flair. But I was honestly just trying to avoid the obsession some kids have with Pooh or Barney or any other animated character... and so far, it's worked!! Regardless, when making the decision to move out of the crib into a big boy bed, I've tried to be very "extreme makeover creative" about the whole thing. Of course, I've tried to avoid the extreme makeover prices.

We decided to go ahead and go with a full size bed to maximize the time Zach uses the bed. I saw an ad on craigslist.org about a guy in Lexington who said he could build anything a person could describe from a drawing, a picture or just a description. I ran several ideas by him, but we both finally agreed on a covered wagon bed. Yes the bed looks like a real covered wagon! He built the bed and delivered it within 10 days! Amazing! The stain even matches the current furniture in the room. He made everything but the cover, which I'm trying to figure out right now. We'll have it all together soon. The bows that hold the cover are removeable so it's sort of like a playhouse on top of a very sturdy bed. I'm not going to post a picture until it's completely done...ooh the suspense for my millions of readers hahah. It's actually only 2 or 3, but that's not why I write the blog.

The day the bed moved in, we were trying to get Zach all hyped up for the move and he was really playing into it. He loved climbing up in the bed. You could just see the cautious excitement in his eyes. Yes I almost cried. Geez, why am I such an emotional girl?!?! I KNOW this should be a great moment for all of us, but where did my baby go?

He resurfaced about 1 am when he sat boltright up in bed and started screaming for mommy. I think he was just totally confused as to where he was and he forgot he got a new bed! Thankfully we had enough forethought to make it a full, so daddy slept with him the rest of the night. Since that first night, he's done incredibly well once he finally falls asleep. There have even been a few mornings when I've had to wake him, which if you know us, is an extremely RARE event. I think he probably needed to move out of that crib months ago; he was just too cramped. A lot of my friends warned me that he would constantly be getting up and running around the house or to our room, but the funny thing is he hasn't gotten out of the bed at all. I'm not saying he never will (I hope he eventually gets up himself to go potty), but for now I'll take this!

I've been really sappy over this whole ordeal and maybe I made it a big deal for me too, not just for Zachary, so that I could handle it better. I know children are a gift from God and that He is just entrusting us to take care of His children for a little while here on Earth. Knowing that doesn't make the giving up process any easier. I've been basically giving him away since he was born:

• giving him to the nurses to run all his tests and clean him up right after birth;
• giving him to the doctors to stick needles in him;
• giving him to nursery workers at church so that I can worship;
• giving him to the babysitter because I have to work;
• giving him to himself because he wants to be more independent;
• giving him to the occasional weekend night babysitter so I can nuture my relationship with my husband;
• and now, giving him to the natural process of growing up and needing me less.

Wow, it's hard isn't it? I think it's rough on me and I don't even know the details of Zachary's future. Think about how hard it was for God to give his only son to the thing he hated most - sin. Think of how hard it was for God to give his pure and only son to those guards who beat him beyond recognition and then nailed him to cross. Really think how hard it was for God to turn his face away from his one and only son as he took all of our sins upon himself. Think about how unimaginable it was for God to watch his only son be buried in a tomb and to watch the people's hopelessness around Him. Some may say "well, yeah but he knew the future, he knew that he was resurrecting his son three days later to give the world more hope than they'd ever known." But honestly, even if I knew my son would live victorious, I could never hand him over and watch as he was beaten and killed. I could never say "well, it's okay, he'll be fine in a few days." I never truly understood all of that until I had my own child, and he's not really even mine; I'm really just God's babysitter.

Sometimes you just have to take a stand!

I realize we are at a pivotal era in parenting and our discipline methods are becoming more and more important, but they certainly aren't getting any easier. You know the old cliche phrase "this is gonna hurt me more than it will hurt you?" Well, it's true and it doesn't always relate to corporal punishment, which is something we avoid at all costs anyway.

Saturday started off normal enough, Zach snuggled, errr, played in our bed for about a half hour before we got up and then we all went downstairs to make "moatmeal." Breakfast passed without a tantrum..yeah we were doing great! I needed to run to Walmart for a few things and Zach wanted to go with me. Usually telling him it's time to get dressed to go anywhere starts a tirade, so I decided to use walmart as a bargaining tool. I told him if he got dressed quick, he could go with me. Amazingly, it worked. He was dressed in warp speed and all we had to do was brush the hair, which takes all of two minutes max to untangle his little curls. With the mention of "fix hair," Zach went into all-out tantrum mode screaming "NO I NOT FIX HAIR NO MORE." He went about the house hitting the walls, yelling at the cats and kicking anything in his path.

So I thought if walmart bargaining worked on the clothes, maybe it would work for the hair. Wrong. I told him he would only go to walmart when he let me brush his hair. He continued screaming and kicking, etc. I thought okay, if I pretend to leave, he will know I'm serious. I walked out the door and the crying did not stop. So I walked back in and told him one last time that he could only go to walmart after his hair was brushed. Screaming continued and I told David I was sorry he had to stay and deal with it, but I had to take a stand. So I told Zach I loved him and I'm sorry he could not calm down enough to go to walmart and then I walked out the door with confidence - on the outside.

As I got into the car and began to drive away, I started crying a little. I hated that I had to leave him there and that he was sad. I wanted to run back in and scoop him up, but I fought the urge and hoped it would show him that I mean what I say.

God must've seen my inner struggle and decided to plant someone in my path at walmart who would understand my plight. When I rounded a corner, there was Alecia Ward. We said our hellos and then she asked the predictable "how are you?" Usually I just say "fine," even when I'm not. But for some reason I just got honest and told her that I'd just had to take a stand with Zach. I explained what happened and she affirmed my decision and like any good, experienced mother would do, told me it had to be done and the sooner he realizes I mean what I say, the better. We didn't linger, we both had things to do, but I walked away feeling confident in my decision and knowing I'd done the right thing. I was thanking God for placing someone there for me who would understand and empathize a bit.

When I got home, Zach was calm, but very red-eyed. David said he'd cried for close to 30 minutes of the 40 I was away. He had to sit on the stairs (our time out spot) for quite awhile because he was being aggressive with David, hitting, kicking, etc. It was so sad, Zach came up to me with tears still in his voice "Mommy, (sniff, sniff, sniff) I wanna go walmart with mommy." I explained to him that I'd had to go without him because he wouldn't let me brush his hair. He just said "yeah." I did scoop him up then and tell him how much I love him, but that we still needed to brush his hair. He reluctantly let me.

It makes me think of the fits I throw when I don't want to do something I know God wants me to do. They may not be manifested in screams, kicks and the like (or maybe they are) but it's the same struggle with our human desire to sin. I'm not talking about "awful" things either, but even gossiping, impatience, gluttony, selfishness and on and on. It's all the same to Him and sometimes he has to take things away from me to prove a point - an opportunity, a friend, etc.

I love the verse "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it," Proverbs 22:6. I wonder if that applies to more than just people young in age. Perhaps it applies to all of us as God's children and he's constantly training us up. I know He is still training me and sometimes, more often than I'd like to admit, He has to take a stand too.

Electric Stove-top Burners ARE hot, yes sir!

Last night was a lesson for everyone in my house (well, not the cats; they just aren't teachable). We had to run by Lowes on the way home and then I needed to put the finishing touches on supper before serving it. Zachary loves to help make mashed potatoes so I invited him to help me. I had taken the pot off the burner and turned it off and drained the potatoes. I had everything ready and he pulled up his chair.

He was a little too close to the burner for my comfort so we scooted down a bit and I warned him that the stove was still hot and he was not to touch it. He said "hot" and shook his head that he agreed to leave it alone. This is usually not a problem as he's really good about leaving dangerous things alone once he's warned of their disaster potential. Plus, he was standing right beside me, right? What could go wrong? Never ask yourself that question, by the way.

Things got a tad chaotic because I was also steaming fresh green beans in the microwave. The microwave beeped and David came over and reached around Zachary into the microwave to retrieve the beans, which were still too hot to remove. He started to move them and realized he was about to spill them everywhere so he tossed them back in the micro. Well, I was distracted and apparently so was Zachary, so instead of continuing to help me mash the potatoes, he decided to try out the burner. He had to lean over quite a bit to reach it and his little hand was probably on there less than half a second, but it FREAKED me out. I dropped the potatoes, splashing them across the kitchen floor, as I scooped up Zach. He wasn't even crying...yet. In an instant I had his hand under running water, I couldn't bring myself to look at it because I was too scared what it looked like. We held his hand there for awhile and he did start to cry and talk about how hot the burner was...REALLY? DUH! Mommy TOLD YOU IT WAS HOT, dangit. FYI, don't say dangit or any other "curse" word in front of your children; they repeat those words incessantly. I can't get him to say kangaroo, but he's mastered dangit...sigh.

I sent David upstairs to get the Dr. Sears baby book...BUY IT, it's great...and we decided to take a look at the burn(s). It wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. In fact it hadn't even broken the skin. I filled up a bowl with tap water like the book said and I submerged his hand in there. It was easier to keep his hand in a bowl than under the running tap. We called the pediatric triage nurse, who probably knows us very well by now. I'm surprised he even had to ask me all the usual information haha. We determined that we could treat the boo boo at home and this morning, it's barely visible. Last night I really thought the slight blisters were going to become a problem, but whew, they aren't.

Zachary will NEVER help me make anything near the stove in the future, and even if I asked him, I doubt he'd agree to come anywhere near that thing. I'm amazed that it did so little damage and so thankful he's okay. Oh and we did salvage the potatoes, most of them anyway.

I no wanna go bed

I'm wondering what exactly children have against sleep. I mean really; as an adult I LOVE sleep; I desire sleep; I look forward to it sometimes with all that is within me!! My son, on the other hand, abhors sleep and will do anything in his power to not enter into peaceful rest of dreamland.

We were on such a great roll before we went to Kansas City. For so many nights, he'd been so easy to put down (and after nearly 2 years of night wakings, you get used to the all night sleeping really fast!). We'd take a bath, read books, sit in my mommy's lap for awhile and then say night night and I'd leave the room and it was perfect. No tears, no whining, no refusing to close eyes. Then we went on two cross-country trips in a month. The first was to Texas and he recovered faster than we ever expected. The second trip was to Kansas City. Now there's not really a lot different about either trip in terms of sleeping arrangements; he slept with us on both. We've never really been co-sleepers, so it was like a special treat...for him. I'm not really into getting kicked in the ribs at night or head butted in pre-sleep stupors, but it worked for a short time.

We've been back for almost 2 weeks and we've had ONE...count it, ONE...night that ran as smoothly as the nights before our trip. We haven't changed the routine...bath, books, songs, bed, but Zach's obviously changed his position on the bed part. It's taken roughly 2 hours each night to get the little monster to bed, which feeds a cycle of sleep deprivation, which feeds a cycle of increased tantrums, which feeds a cycle of sleep deprivation...

I'm patient for about the first hour and then I just get so agitated that I want to bang my head on the wall; last night I gave in and banged it on his door while telling him to HUSH and CLOSE EYES. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm sure that made him feel safe and secure and enticed him to sleep eh?

I haven't given in; once he's in bed, he's there and I don't pick him up again. I don't let him in our bed unless it's after 5:30 a.m. I do try to stay in the room until he's really drowsy and seems asleep and I do tip toe out the door. But, he must have sonar in his ears because he can hear the slightest creak in the door and he's sitting up screaming again. David and I have been standing outside his door trying to reassure him that we are "right here." It finally works, but it's just exhausting. I'm not a cry it out mom, so I really don't want anyone telling me I should just leave him alone to cry. He could outcry me anyday.

I was talking to a girl at Gymboree yesterday who apparently lets her 13 month old cry it out for an hour or more without even checking on her. I just cannot see the logic in that and it doesn't happen at my house. I'll let him go a few minutes, then I'll go in and lay him back down, calm him down and leave again. That's what I've always done and it eventually works, but it doesn't usually take 2 weeks WOW. I'm just so tired. I really have a lot of respect for moms who can handle more than one baby/preschooler; I don't know where you get the energy unless you have at least one naturally good sleeper.