Tips for reading aloud to toddlers

As I was reading to the boys this morning, I thought of how there are a few things I've learned that greatly increase the longevity of our story times together.  I start reading to my children at a very young age, just because that's something that happens so much at our house, but inevitably they reach a wiggly stage where they go boneless and slide off your lap and run off to wreak havoc elsewhere.  And I was thinking about that when I realized that we'd been reading for almost 45 minutes and Luke was still firmly planted in my lap, barking at all of the pictures.

So here are my tips:

1) Read during snacktime.  A younger child is much more likely to stay put when they are occupied with eating, and in my experience, they stay longer and longer post-snack out of habit.  Plus, a toddler can take an insanely long time to eat, and this capitalizes on that fact! (I know some people are very adamant about no food out of the kitchen, and I probably would be more concerned if I wasn't planning to replace my carpet, but my philosophy on this is that you can vacuum afterwards, and it's worth it to me.  I do have a no-food policy at other times.)

2) Sit on the floor.  I gradually gravitate back toward the couch as the kids get older, but with a toddler, I've found that sitting on the floor works best because they can easily get off your lap and then come right back when they're ready.  Often I will read aloud to older children and the toddler sits by us playing and comes back to my lap every couple of minutes.

3) Read books that YOU like to read.  Don't torture yourself!  I love reading aloud to my children because I love the books that we're reading.  For a few years I felt guilty about my no-Disney policy, or my only-one-Berenstein-Bears/Curious-George-per-day rule, but reading is just so much more fun and enjoyable and something I really look forward to when it's books that I adore, and when they grow to love the books that are worth loving.  And on this note, I absolutely am an advocate of investing in books.  We have hundreds of children's books, and it's been worth every penny.  Yes, they're expensive if you buy them all brand-new at your local Barnes & Noble, but much less so if you shop Amazon Marketplace, your local library booksales, thrift stores, etc.  Purchasing classics from my childhood that I know my children will absolutely love is something that brings a ridiculously cheesy smile to my face.

Your thoughts?

photo by Kim Davis Photography

The Meanest Mom

Potty-training is something I really hate.  You can't yell or get mad at someone who is making a huge mess, and you have to keep cleaning up awful messes!  Seriously, the pits of motherhood.

So anyway, I started potty-training Isaac last January.  It went pretty well, although it was far from being as easy as it was with the girls (I'll spare you the gruesome details, but if you ever want some hilarious horror stories, my friend, we should chat).  After a month or two, it seemed like we were good to go, with the occasional accident here and there.

Except.

Apparently, Isaac is not grossed out by urine the way adults are.  So if he wets his pants, he totally doesn't care.  And while he is perfectly capable of holding it, sometimes he just doesn't feel like it.  The past couple of months, since he's gotten really proficient at dressing himself, he will wet his pants, coolly go in and get new clothes, drop the wet ones in the washer, and get dressed again.  Sometimes I've even seen him squat on the floor, urinate through his pants so that there is a puddle on the floor and only a tiny neat wet circle on his clothing, and stand up and walk away.

IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE.  Yesterday I washed 9 pairs of pants for him.  Nine!  It was only two days' worth of laundry!

So I have been experimenting with different things (I should really choose one and stick to it, but nothing seems to really make an impact, because the kid is so mellow and easy-going).

The other day I took away his pants and made him wear Baby Legs.  He was so mad at me.  Like totally furious.  He refused to wear them and I took his picture because it made him even madder (how's that for good mothering?)  And then he peeled off the Baby Legs and told me, "Daddy says these are not for big boys.  Daddy says these are dumb-looking and big boys don't wear them."  (I used to have Isaac wear these when he was little and just wearing cloth diapers and Neil did, indeed, decide they were not cool in his book.)

So...any ideas?  He never wets himself if we are out somewhere (maybe it's a good excuse to embark on a lengthy vacation--snap out of it!)  Or if he's borrowed Juliet's clothes because Luke is asleep in the room where Isaac's clothes live. Just when he's home and he has access to his own clean clothes (or if he's at a friend's house and he feels comfortable enough.  Hey!  I like you!  Let me wet my pants to show my love!).  But seriously.  This is driving me up the wall, especially because my sense of smell is much more sensitive with pregnancy, and I do not love cuddling with a stinky little boy.

Flood me with your genius ideas and brilliant solutions!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

It's so beautiful where we live.  And fall is the most beautiful time of year.  I can't get enough of it.  On Sunday, as we always do, we packed everyone up and headed out for a walk just as the light was beginning to fade.  Once we got into the woods, the dusky light was filtered gold down through the trees.  Beautiful.

 

 

 Leaf photo-bombing!

 I came around a corner near the very end of our walk and the children were lined up on a log waiting patiently.  They told me that they thought it was a nice spot for a picture.  And it was.

Luke is growing up

It's a good thing that I didn't have a blog when Abigail was a baby, so that nobody can complain that I was super diligent about blogging every milestone of my first child's few years, and then totally slacked off later.  (I was pretty diligent with Juliet and somewhat less so with Isaac.  Luke, my dear, count yourself lucky that I took the time to give you pigtails just like your sisters!  Don't you feel so loved?!)



 So anyway, this child o'mine is growing like mad--he's going to be 18 months old in a couple of weeks.  He still doesn't seem to feel any inclination to use actual words, and I must say he is incredibly good at communicating with grunts, nods, headshakes, and his own made-up form of sign language.  I would definitely say that he has trained us rather than the reverse.  If he was my first, I would be worried about the fact that he isn't talking, but...I'm not.  (He does bark happily whenever he sees a dog, and he will say "Mama" on very rare occasions, and like I said, he's diligently taught every one of us his little sign language.)

Anyway, he has absolutely no problem getting what he wants.  Like apples.  He is CRAZY about apples right now, although he will never ever ever eat them in his high chair.  Ever.  It's like this total look of disgust, like, woman, what is this "food" with which you have presented me?  I recognize it not!  Free me from this nefarious contraption so that I can go visit one of my hidden apple stockpiles!  (One day I found eight apples in various stages of eaten-ness around the house.  I've since moved everything out of his reach, but he has three enablers who feel sorry for him, so it hasn't made much of a difference.  Plus he climbs like nobody's business.)

Sometimes he is crazy.

 He's also in love with the dishwasher--what the KitchenAid stand mixer is to Isaac (the clarion call that signals a mad rush to the kitchen), the dishwasher is to Luke.  Must. Unload. Now.  We had a friend over the other night who was going crazy trying to keep retrieving Luke's pilfered dishwasher items, and it took me forever to notice what was going on because I'm so used to just absentmindedly washing things and then going after Luke when I'm done to retrieve his stash.  (He especially likes rubber scrapers, so sometimes I just give him a handful of clean ones before I start.)

Also, Fourth Child has already mastered the mouse.  Which makes Third Child very upset, because "Yookey" messes up Isaac's playlists and then he can't dance, man!  (Please note Luke's apple.)

 And speaking of dancing, I came in to the kitchen today (I was putting away laundry in the boys' room) and I found this.



And because I'm a very responsible mom, I told him to not fall off and then I grabbed the camera.

Breakdance time!



One thing that has brought a great deal of peace to our home...Luke is finally starting to play WITH Isaac rather than attacking Isaac's toys.  Hallelujah!

 And last but not least, today Isaac and I cut a deal that I would give him "hedgehog hair" if he would go pick up his trains.  And Lukey, of course, wanted to be included in the styling.  I love love his hair...it's way longer than I've ever let Isaac's get but it's just so fluffy and blonde and beautiful, I can't bring myself to cut the top any shorter than a trim here and there!

13 miles at 13 weeks

As is my wont, I ran another half-marathon this morning with my latest little passenger (surprise! we're expecting our fifth baby in the spring!  We're so thrilled!!!!!!!)

This race was totally different than any I'd ever run.  I've trained for it very diligently, but my knee is still only about 65% of what it needs to be, I'm starting my second trimester, and the biggie:  I have an ovarian cyst that has been causing absolutely mind-blowing pain (apparently, continuing my shake-things-up pattern of exploring weird pregnancy maladies).  If you've ever had one, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about; if you haven't, just imagine the pain from either a) the worst menstrual cramps you've ever had or b) the middle of labor--not quite to transition, but pretty close.  And imagine it going on for weeks, all day, no breaks, untouchable by Tylenol.   It's been pretty devastating.  For almost six weeks we didn't know if the baby would make it (still not entirely in the clear, but things are looking much better--the worst was the second month where I didn't know about the cyst yet and I just woke up every.single.night from the pain, convinced that I was in the process of miscarrying, until I finally went in for the first of several ultrasounds, but it took about two months before I went in) and that was really hard.  And on bad days I can't do anything at all.  Fortunately the bad days are almost invariably Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun, so I can sort of plan ahead and Neil is able to be around more.

But on good days, I can run a half-marathon!  And today was a great day (which is FABULOUS because two days ago was one of the worst ones yet).  With everything that's been going on, we threw out any ideas of setting personal records, and just planned to have fun.  We left all our timing equipment and iPods at home, and the course itself didn't have a single volunteer yelling out splits, so I really had no idea how fast we were going--I just ran slightly slower than usual, walked through every single water stop (staying hydrated for the baby!) and generally enjoyed myself.  Our time ended up being 2:08 (9:47/mile), which is the slowest I've ever run (10 minutes slower than the last one I ran while pregnant), but honestly, I'm just thrilled that I ran the whole time and that I ran it, period, considering that most of my training runs involved being doubled over in unbearable pain at some point.  (Incidentally, since I know someone will wonder, my doctor told me that I could keep running since it wouldn't cause any damage and might help to take my mind off things.)

And it really was lovely.  We ran the inaugural half in our hometown, which meant that we were running trails that we run all the time, and running through campus, and running through our cute little historic district (I wasn't such a huge fan of the 2-mile incline at the finish, but whatever...it was definitely the hilliest race I've ever run!  TONS of hills all the way through).  We just chatted and laughed and had a great time together (and I saw the kids' pediatrician at the start and finish and we hugged and chatted and finally got to meet each other's husbands, so that was also kind of fun, since she is the one who told me about the race in the first place).  It's been interesting to see how much I'm really enjoying running again lately, even with the pain, because I've been forced over the last year to focus on miles rather than time and competing against myself.  In January I was SO excited when I ran my first seven-minute mile, and I thought this was going to be my best running year yet--I was planning to run a marathon this fall, and a half-marathon in spring.  And instead I spent months in physical therapy and almost cried with joy the first time I ran 5 miles without my knee going out on me.  My Nike + died a few months back, and so I've really just been running to run. Today was like the ultimate run for the sheer joy of running, and it was so wonderful.  So great to be with my best friend.  I felt like I ran a good race--I kept an even pace, I had enough energy to run up the last 2 miles of hills without slowing down, and I had enough juice left to sprint to the finish and cross the line going full throttle.

And then we came home and I went into my usual post-race-shock-passing-out thing, and my dear husband had anticipated it and had a mound of fluffy blankets and hot pads waiting so that he could cocoon me up until the convulsive shaking stopped and the stomach cramping started (really glad it held off so long!) Now we just have to somehow get through the rest of the day when all we want to do is sleep...I think we sent our babysitter home too early!  And now I am in bed grading and writing this.  The end.

Pictorial onslaught

**Note...in my browser, a lot of these are getting chopped off at the side.  So if you really care to see the whole picture, you're probably going to have to click on it.  Sorry! 

I'm finally getting around to posting the color shots from our photo shoot a few weeks ago.  I must say, these create a real dilemma for me.  Almost all of the framed photos in our home (with the exception of one obscure out-of-the-way collage) are black and white.  But I love the color in these!  Especially since our home is a pretty colorful place, and I love how these just pop.  So...dilemma.

One of the things I was really hoping for in hiring a lifestyle photographer is for artistic interpretations of things that happen thousands of times in our home--the kind of thing that is beautiful to me, but maybe not to anyone else.  And I wanted it captured in a way that made it obviously beautiful to everyone else, and I feel like this shoot really did that.  The photo of Isaac and his trains (above) exemplifies just what I was going for.  I love the jumbled warm wood tones of all the trains, and those chubby little boy hands and feet so carefully putting together the tracks.

And speaking of chubby adorable hands...

 And I love the toes in this one, because this is how Isaac always crouches to play with his trains.  Love love love those little scrunchie toes.

 Also really like this one...

 And I love Abigail's face in this!

This one is in my top 10 favorites from the day.  I love love love the color!  And the darling chubby Luke ankles!

 

 And lots of shots of kidlets playing with their toys.

And eating their toys.

 Isaac is so intent.  Which, if you know him in real life, is just how his personality is.  He is so focused!  So intent!  So furrowed of brow!  (So adamant that you "wisten to me, wight now!  Your face is not wooking at me when I talk to you!")

 
 I would really love this picture if I didn't look sort of dorky and Abigail sort of "I've outgrown this whole thing."

But look...she's not too cool for stories.

 So remember forever ago when I was taking photos of my house for a house tour thingie?  I am so glad that Jessica took these photos, because they are so much better than I could do with my camera, and I do love my little kitchen.  And I think it looks so pretty here.  :-)  (And also, I'm still debating...do I paint over the red with a blah beige before we put it up for sale?  Would you buy it as-is?)

Okay, this is another top ten picture.  That Luke tippy-toes just melts my heart every single time.  Oh baby, please stop growing up so fast.  

 (He doesn't grow as quickly when we only feed him oven mitts.)



Another very characteristic Isaac shot...no matter where he is in the house, as soon as he hears the KitchenAid mixer turn on, he zooms in, climbs up on the counter, and asks "What are you making?  Can I help?  Can I have a little pinch to eat?"

 Divvying up the muffin cups...

 and again...

 and the chaos that is my kitchen with all six of us in it.  If only it looked this clean and pretty with all of us running around all the time.  For realism's sake, we really should have had a few half-finished craft projects strewn about...

 Another pair of shots of my oldest and my thirdest that I just love.  Personalities shining through.  Abigail kept disappearing to the couch with a book...there are a LOT of these photos.

 Love the sheer glee here!

So this sequence of photos is pretty cool.

 I am really torn on this one.  Neil is right that it's a great happy picture of all of us.  But when I look at it, all I can think is "why did I wear that shirt?!"  I really debated before the shoot, because I like the color and the shirt in general, but it has a weird drape, and if I pull it down over my hips, then it makes me look like I have no waist, and I always forget that I need to let the banded bottom of it hit higher (right over the belt) than I usually like to wear my long-waisted shirts.  So in this picture I feel like a dumpling.  I don't think it's going to make it onto our wall.  (Also, Luke was screaming his head off in rage because he wanted to be on the swings, but he looks happy.  Haha.)

 Bubbles!!

 I love this photo of Jules.  It makes her look like she's just two or three again.

 Also really like the contrast of Luke with the wood.  There's another one with a more pleasant expression, but unfortunately there was a sunspot on the fence.

 And back inside to the glossied-up kitchen chaos.

 Love love love this one of Neil and Juliet.

 And I really love the lighting on this one (if only Neil, Jules, and Luke were looking at the camera!)

 All in all, I'm really glad we opted for the lifestyle shoot.  I felt like we got some really great classic photos that captured our day-to-day life (albeit a tidied-up version thereof).  My only regret is that we didn't get a really standout shot of all six of us where we were all looking pleasantly at the camera, but then again, we didn't do very many posed shots, and it seems like with this many people, you have to take about 400 posed shots to get just a single frameable one!

But ultimately, when I look at these, it makes me think that my family is so darling and sweet that I want to go get them all out of their beds and snuggle them, and that's what a good photo shoot is all about.  (Preserving that illusion of cherubic little babies and forgetting the struggle that it was to get them all quiet and into bed in the first place!  P.S. Did you notice that Luke went through three shirts during the course of the shoot?  He was one crazy baby.)