{ Parenting }

{ *ETA* Just an update - found this website through a recommendation of a friend and love it!}

We went to a parenting lecture at church tonight. The pshychologist was really good. I want to remember the points he made, so I'm recording them here, for myself and anyone else who might be interested.

First, there are the 3 C's of parenting.

* Consistency (between parents and all authority figures as well as in their individual actions)
* Communication (between the two parents and between each parent and each child)
* Consequences (children need consequences consistently and fitting of the behaviour, good and bad)

Next are the traits of a STAR parent - this is the one we strive to be.

S - stop
T - think
A - act
R - respond

When a child wants your attention, you need to stop and give them undivided attention. You need to use good listening skills without interrupting and get off your pedestal for a minute to hear them out.

Always think before acting. Make sure you are within the boundaries of respect and love when acting on a child's behavior. Do not take things personally, get overly emotional or start yelling or hitting.

If time outs are not working, have your child answer questions during time outs. If the child cannot write, sit with him/her and ask the questions and write the answers. Examples are:

Why are we sitting here together right now?
What did I want you to do?

The psychologist also touched on the psychosocial stages by Eric Erickson. It starts with trust vs. mistrust. Then autonomy vs. shame. There are more that I don't remember. When a person gets stuck at one of these stages he/she cannot move on to the next. For instance, if a person learns to mistrust, he/she will not be able to move on to autonomy. I totally need to research this some more. Wikipedia has a quick version.

{ DS's Oops Day }

DS had an oops day at school. He had to move his clip down because he was being silly and disruptive during class. He didn't get a ticket today. Earlier this week he got a blue ticket, which is for doing something above the expectation. He only needs five blue tickets to get a prize. He was so proud on Tuesday when he picked a shrek toy from the prize bin. Was it the rain? I'm not sure. Could he be regressing and testing a bit? Probably. Is there still hope for him? I pray every day for that!

{ Santa Rosa Plateau }

Yesterday, we went to the Santa Rosa plateau for a little hike. We like to go there in the springtime when the vernal pools are full and we can see all kinds of wildlife. This time the pools had water from rains in December. The fairy shrimp don't appear until later, but we did hear one frog and saw a watersnake. There were tons of large dragonflies hanging out by the water, too. We hiked a three mile round trip to an old adobe house that was a ranch house a century ago. The kids played there for a long time. It was nice to just enjoy the quiet and let the kids go. On our way back, we were treated to a beautiful sunset. When we were almost to our car, DH stopped and told the kids to listen. Then we heard them. The coyotes were just beginning their evening hunt. They were in a circle, howling to each other. The kids weren't scared one bit. They just sat there listening, totally awed by the coyotes' songs.

{ Happy MLK Day }

So, while we were driving to San Diego today, DS says "A long time ago," then DD says "like in the '80's," then DS says "mom hated daddy. But then MLK was sleeping and he had a dream that one day everyone would be nice to each other. He made a speech, and now mommy loves daddy." He came up with this all on his own - his class read a book about MLK last week. Haha, we were rolling.

The kids always color dad as a dark brown guy with big, black, curly hair. So MLK and daddy are brown people and mommy is a white person. As much as we all want to be the same, you can't pull the wool over children's eyes. They see people as they are and rejoice in their differences, all while learning about the world they live in. The things you learn from kids!

{ Go DS !!! }

Well, DS is two weeks into his new kindergarten class. While he is still being deprogrammed from all of the bad habits he picked up in his last class, he is improving! Yay! His teacher says the past three days have been really great. He gets a red ticket for every good day that he has. When he gets 10 tickets, he gets a pencil and a prize from the treasure box. I have to say, this kid will perform for a prize! Here are his tickets. He can't wait to go back to school on Tuesday and get his prize!

{ DD Lost her Tooth Today }

My daughter lost her 8th tooth today! She's excited for the tooth fairy to come tonight. She also started her new musical theatre class tonight. It's at the Old Town Theatre, which we just love. The teacher, on the other hand, was 40 minutes late. Luckily we stuck around waiting for her to return one of the mom's call, because after she finally showed up she went ahead and did the class late. It was cute and, of course, DD loved it, but I think we will still check into a serious ballet company. I'm balking at the cost of that, but DD loves ballet and it's worth it to keep her in it while she loves it. I love that she performs without much nerves. She goes out there and does her best without getting rattled!

{ Fried Green Tomatoes }

Here's the recipe I used! We actually thought they were pretty good!


I have started a 365 project for this year. The idea is to take a picture every day during the year. At the end, we should have a nice keepsake of the year. The green tomatoes are the only pictures I took on the 1st! More are coming soon, I might post them weekly rather than daily, we'll see how it goes.

DS is doing well in his new class. So far he has come home with two red tickets - which mean he had a good day. He gets to save up ten tickets to trade for a prize. I think he was nervous about the change, but he seems to be warming up to it!

{ Happy Birthday to DH }

We celebrated with DH before he went to work. We sang and had cake and then played a game of Sorry which DS won. DH is off to work again tonight. He thanks everyone for the gifts and cards. (Thank you cards are coming, I'm just a little behind since my shoulder began to spasm.)

{ Happy New Year 2009! }

Here're the kids at 11:20 pm on new year's eve. We spent the earlier evening with the friends eating dinner and celebrating new years in New York. Yes, that happens at 9:00 pm in California! The kids had horns and poppers and had a great time making a racket. Afterwards we took some dinner to DH, who was stuck at work for the night, and got home about 10:30. Wouldn't you know, the kids decided they wanted to stay up till midnight. We couldn't find anything on tv so we put in a movie and DD promptly fell asleep! DS stayed awake but now he's cranky! We're looking forward to 2009!

A couple of years ago, DHwas making pancakes for new years breakfast, but realized we had no syrup. That was the day chocolate chip pancakes topped with whipped cream were added to our list of favorite foods! For our "new food" for the new year of 2009, I made some fried green tomatoes, whistle stop cafe style! The freeze got our tomato plant, but it still had 20 small green tomatoes on it. I looked in my handy "Joy of Cooking" cookbook and found the recipe. We loved them, but true to the kid's form, they wouldn't touch them. Oh well, more for us!