Friday, November 24, 2006

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday yesterday. We had a great dinner with Gramma Marsha, Grampa Jerry, Uncle John and Uncle Steve. We played some games and ate lots of food and enjoyed not having to work or go to school. We also enjoyed our annual Thanksgiving tradition of White Castles at midnight (well after the turkey has been digested!)


Thanksgiving is technically over, but since school and work are not happening until MONDAY, it seems the holiday is going to last four days here at the Reddy Zoo. However, I'm not sure there are enough leftovers to last that long. Oh, well! Enjoy your turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey tetrazzini, turkey jerky.....

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

My Terrible Three with Middle Child Syndrome


C.B. is three-and-a-half, seemingly the perfect age to use the "Terrible 3’s" to describe his behavior lately. (That's right; I said "Terrible 3s". Two is a breeze compared with three.) However, some may call it "Middle Child Syndrome", since he is one of the two kids in the middle of our four. Labels like these and the behaviors they imply do seem to describe C.B. at this stage of his life. And maybe labels like these make it easier on parents to explain away these behaviors. But who really wants to be labeled?

Think about it...if the label is positive, we tend to feel pressure to live up to it, which could be good. But what if we can’t? Many people then become depressed or resentful when they’re unable to live up to the expectations of the positive label. Likewise when the label is negative, like "Terrible 3's" or "Middle Child Syndrome", we often find ourselves living up to that negativity and exhibiting all the expected negative behaviors. So it doesn't seem helpful to put a label on C.B.'s behavior. What I really need is to spend more time with him, be more patient with him, and remember that "this, too, shall pass!"

I realized this morning that I have help with this in unexpected ways. When C.B. got up and came downstairs this morning, Banana walked as fast as I've seen her walk yet to get over to him. C.B. was amused by this and exclaimed, "She ran!" (I guess you could call it running.) But what happened next was even better. She went right up to him and gave him a great big hug. What a smile he had on his face! I think that hug meant more to him than anything I could have done or said this morning.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Who's that kid with the OREO cookie?

We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new Shop-n-Save near our house for about a year now. We go by it every time we drive to or from school so we have been watching the building progress. Well, it finally opened yesterday and we just HAD to go and check it out! There were tons of other people there with the same idea, but plenty of cashiers as well so the wait wasn't too bad. Also I only had two of the kids with me. However, Banana chose the checkout line as the perfect place for her tantrum in the cart. In case you aren't aware, you get to bag your own groceries at Shop-n-Save. It's not bad, but I need more practice. My strategy is to cram as many things as possible into each bag so I don't have so many bags to carry in when I get home. Sounds logical, right? Well, it works for me. Anyway, with Banana crying I had to throw any strategy out the window and bag like the wind so I could get out of there. As we were sprinting out, a nice Shop-n-Save employee handed C.B. a package of Oreos and told me thanks for shopping today. And since Banana was crying the nice lady gave Banana her own package of Oreos and told me to have a nice day. Free cookies! Twice even!! I never thought I would say there was anything positive about tantrums in the grocery store. Though my sister-in-law Debbie just mentioned the other day that they opened an extra checkout lane just to get her out of the store one time when her son was having a moment. It might be worth a try to pinch your kid while you're in the checkout lane and see what you get when the crying starts. Okay, maybe not.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween came and went. It's the same every year...the excitement builds up for at least a month before the actual day gets here, and then we're left with more candy that we can possible finish even weeks after it is over. We decided after last Halloween that we would be a family of vampires, and the idea stuck one year later. It stuck with Big D and Miss M, that is. C.B., who has been generally uncooperative lately, and Banana, who is too little and cute to turn into a vampire, dressed up as less threatening creatures. I lost count of how many times we got kids in and out of costumes, due to the number of Halloween parties at school, church, etc. I'm surprised the costumes actually made it through Trick-or-Treating in one piece. Click here for some spooky Halloween fun!