Thriving Threes

I went to a Thriving Threes workshop tonight.  I learned a lot of useful information regarding the routines, discipline and skill development for three-year olds.  Below is an overview of what I learned. 

Routines: 

It is very important to have a very specific routine for pretty much everything.  Children love routines and it helps then to feel safe and secure.  For example, your morning routine might consist of wake up, go potty, brush teeth, get dressed and eat breakfast.  The routine should consist of the exact same things in the exact same order every day.  DO NOT BREAK THE ROUTINE.  Adults are thrown when they don’t get their morning ‘routine’ cup of coffee or shower.  Children are thrown off just the same.  Only they are young and ‘handle’ routine change by crying or having a temper tantrum.

Discipline: 

At age three, children can control two things, their bodily functions and their parent’s emotions.  When you discipline a child, you should show no emotion.  Further you should not talk them.  The facilitator encourages the ‘1,2,3, Timeout’ approach.  When the child does something wrong you simply say (with no emotion), “Sawyer, that’s one.”  If the child has the same bad behavior within the next five seconds you say (with no emotion), “Sawyer, that’s two.”  If the child does the same bad behavior a third time you say (with no emotion), “Sawyer, that’s three.  Timeout.”  You do not lecture the child or provide an explanation for their punishment.  When the timeout is over, you let the child up with no explanation, apology or hugs/ kisses.  The child already knows what they did wrong, they don’t need you to explain it.  Further, apologies at this time are very rarely heart-felt.  Finally, there should be no need for hugs/kisses because no emotion was shown on the part of the parent so the child should have no hurt feelings.

You must have rules and expectations.  Rules need to be simple, short and few (3-5 rules for a three-year old).  Consequences for breaking rules or not following expected behavior needs to be enforced every time and in the exact same way every time with as little words as possible.  For example, “Sawyer, no hitting.  Timeout.”  Do not say, “Sawyer, I’ve told you over and over that hitting is bad behavior.  When you hit someone it hurts.  How would you like it if someone hit you? etc.”  Three year olds do not have the ability to reason or have logical thoughts/behaviors so a lecture is pointless. 

Follow through and be consistent.  Do not threaten a punishment that you will not or cannot go through with.

Tips:

Tell children what is coming up next so they can be prepared.  For example, “After your bath, we will put on pj’s and then read a story.”  If they are not ’surprised’, they are better able to cope.

Provide options.  If bedtime is in five minutes, give your child the option of going to bed now or playing for five more minutes.  This way, the child will think he is in control while the parent actually maintains control.  Three year olds thrive on being in control of what they do and when they do it.

For whining and complaining, choose an empathetic phrase to use all the time (make best efforts to avoid the word, ‘No’ in this phrase). For example, your child asks to watch a movie and you tell them no.  If they keep whining, “But I want to”, use an empathetic phrase such as, “I know you do.”  Keep using the phrase over and over in an empathetic tone.  Eventually, the child will stop whining after they hear the phrase one or two times because they know that the parent will just continue to use the phrase over and over.  Using an empathetic phrase shows that you are listening and are in touch with their feelings.

Skill Development: 

Three years old is the right time to begin major skill development in the following areas . . .

Fine Motor:  Hands-On . . . play-do, cutting with scissors, writing, etc.

Gross Motor:  Pedaling a bike, hopping on one foot, etc.

Social:  Conversations, ask/answer questions, develop friendships

Cognitive:  Making connections (i.e. recognizing a specific letter in different places . . . a story book, a road sign, a refrigerator magnet), memory, matching, etc.

Cailey is 8 Months Old

Cailey - 8 Months

On November 3rd, Cailey turned 8 months old. 

Cailey has become very vocal.  She does not babble, she sings . . . one loud, long note.  The best is when she does this in the car.  I will have Cailey ’singing’ and Sawyer telling her to be quite and complaining to me that she is too loud and is hurting his ears.  I just laugh . . . Cailey seems to be playing the ‘annoying younger sibling’ role quite well.

Cailey is not yet crawling.   I think she is very close but I’ve been thinking that for about six weeks now.  Pretty soon I will have to baby proof the house a little better and block off our stairway.

Cailey is such a sweet and content little girl.  She likes to be held but I’m okay with that.  I will hold her all I can because pretty soon she won’t want to be held at all.  I guess she could be like Sawyer, though.  He is three and still asks to be carried all the time.  I would gladly carry him all day but he gets heavy pretty quick.

Cailey weighs 16 pounds and is 26 1/2 inches long.  After I measured Cailey, Sawyer measured me . . . I am 3 months long.  I measured Sawyer and he is 38 inches long but he protested that he is 3 years long.  What a funny boy

 

Dress Up

Sawyer enjoyed trick-or-treat last weekend.  It took a little coaxing to get him into the costume but he finally decided it was worth wearing to get the candy.  Sawyer was a chicken and Cailey was a frog.   Andi Grace was also a chicken.  She and Sawyer had matching costumes which was a complete coincidence but very cute.

Today, I bought some clearance costumes at 75% off.  I figure that they will work well for playing dress up or for future trick-or-treating.  I bought a pink princess dress, an angel dress and a Tinker Bell costume.  On average, each costume was about $10.  I told Sawyer to pick out a costume but he didn’t want one.  I might go back and buy a fireman or superhero costume.  After all, a princess needs a hero, right?

It seems like we’ve been very busy but I can’t really think of anything major that we’ve been doing.  I guess it has just been a lot of little stuff.  We had a mini Janssen family reunion at our house three weekends ago and last weekend we helped Peter’s brother move into his very first house.  We’ve been doing a lot of leaf raking/blowing.  This is our first fall with a leaf blower and I love it.  I’m not sure if the work gets done any faster but it is easier and I don’t get any blisters.

I’ve been trying to think of some sort of child’s fort to build in our playroom.  It is something that I would have loved to have when I was little.  I would like something with two levels which is causing a little bit of difficulty because our ceilings are pretty low (maybe 6.5-7 feet).  I was also considering a slide but I think it would take up too much space.  Now that I have a little girl, a mini-house or castle would be fun but it probably has to be gender neutral so that Sawyer will want to use it, too.  If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Here are a few pics of the kids.

 

Cailey is 7 Months Old

Cailey turned seven months old about a week ago (I’m a little bit behind on my posting).  She weighs 15.2 pounds and is 26 1/2 inches long. 

Cailey has become really good at sitting unassisted.  She can lean over and reach toys and then sit back up again.  She can also go from sitting to lying down.  Cailey is very close to crawling.  She wants to crawl so badly but she just hasn’t figured out how to do it.  I guess that she will be crawling within the next week or two.

I looked at some seven month old pictures of Sawyer and saw that he was drinking from a sippy cup, holding his own bottles and eating some beginner solids like Puffs and teething biscuits.  Sawyer was already crawling by seven months and starting to pull himself up onto his knees.  I was surprised to see how much further along he was than what  Cailey is.  Obviously some of these things are dependent upon the parent.  I had not even thought of giving Cailey beginner solids yet.  I also hadn’t given her a sippy cup or tried to get her to hold her own bottle.  It seems as though I was so much more eager for Sawyer to learn/accomplish new things than I am with Cailey.  Maybe because Sawyer was first and it seemed like so much more of a big deal with him.  It could also be that Cailey is my baby and my last child so I am wanting her to stay a baby as long as possible . . . the less she does on her own, the more baby-like she seems.  With Sawyer, I think I pushed him a lot harder to learn stuff but with Cailey I am leaving her to just learn stuff in her own time.

I expected Cailey to grow the same way that Sawyer did so I bought her size 12 month clothes for winter (I typically buy clearance clothes a season ahead).  She is not quite keeping up with Sawyer so 12 months will definitely not be fitting her during the early part of the winter.  I put Cailey in her size 12 month winter jacket to see if it would fit . . . I guess we will have to figure something else out

Bedtime Giggles

Sawyer usually goes to bed really well.  Tonight was a little out of the ordinary.  Long story short, we tucked Sawyer into bed seven times tonight and he kept getting out of bed.  He is grounded from a few toys tomorrow for his bad behavior.  But . . .

I see these little fingers peeking out from underneath Sawyer’s bedroom door.  Since corporal punishment wasn’t working, I decided to lay on the floor in front of his door.  When his little fingers popped out again I grabbed them.  Sawyer began to giggle.  He pulled his fingers away and then stuck them under the door again.  I grabbed his fingers again and Sawyer said, “Who is that?”  I lowered my voice in disguise and said, “I don’t know.  Who do you think it is?”  Sawyer said, “I know it’s you, Mommy.”  I said, “What are you doing?”  Very seriously, Sawyer said, “I’m trapped in here.  I can’t get out.  Will you save me?”  His question made me laugh.  It is funny the way children think . . . he is a prisoner and we have ‘trapped’ him in his room.  Plus, I’m the enemy . . . like I’m really going to ’save’ him.  On the other hand, I’m the mommy and I make everything alright so of course I would be the one to save him.

For a few minutes longer, we continued to giggle as we grabbed each other’s fingers.  Then I had to be authoritative again and make him go to bed.  Sometimes kids are so gosh darn cute it’s hard to be upset with them.

A Whole Lotta Stuff

I have my fourth batch of zucchini bread in the oven so I have a few minutes to write a post while I wait for it to finish baking.  The kids and I brought a batch of zucchini muffins to our elderly neighbor, Joe.  He is a very nice widower and I thought he might like some baked goods.  Then we headed to the park.  Sawyer met a little boy at the park who was two weeks older than he.  The boys had a fun time playing together while the little boy’s mother and I visited.  Maybe the boys will end up in the same four year old kindergarten class next fall. 

Just a side note on kindergarten, I just heard on the news that gov’t is trying to make kindergarten mandatory for children.  Children will not be allowed to enter first grade until they have completed kindergarten.  I guess the problem now is that kindergarten is not mandatory so attendance cannot be enforced. 

Both kids had back to back doctor appointments on Monday.  Sawyer was pretty awful.  I’m not sure what got into him but he was at his worst.  I suppose it happens to all parents at one time or another.  He was getting into everything and not obeying.  As a parent, you don’t want to do too much scolding in public but then it looks as if you have a very unruly child that receives very little discipline.  When we got home, Sawyer spent a very long time in ‘time-out’.  On the plus side, both kids appear to be very healthy.

Tuesday night was our first night of Awanas.  Sawyer had a great time in Puggles (the 2-3 year old class).  At one point, I walked past his classroom and saw all the kids (about 20 children) sitting at the little tables with their hands folded and heads bowed in prayer.  It was really cute and it lifted my spirits to know that all of these children are learning about God at such a young age.  All of the kids in the class received a Puggles t-shirt and will get some kind of kit (or box) for the year’s activities.

Peter and I have volunteered to work at Awanas.  I love babies so I requested to be put in the youngest class which is basically just a nursery.  Including Peter and I, there were four adults and seven babies.  There should be two more babies next week.  I enjoyed taking care of the babies and I think Peter did, too.  On the drive home, Peter told me that he had been nervous but it wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.  I’m sure some nights will be easier than others.

Sawyer is finally day time potty trained.  He has done a great job the last two weeks and has had only one accident.   I think the deal breaker was telling him that he couldn’t go to the Eve of Destruction (a race/demo derby type event) unless he did all his business in the toilet.  He will only pooh in the little potty chair but I’m okay with that.  Now we need to start working on night time training. 

Here are some recent pictures of the kids.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend ended up being a very laborious weekend.  On Friday night, Bryan and Peter cut down a birch tree in our front yard.  On Saturday morning to early afternoon, Peter and his brother cut down a half dozen large branches hanging over our deck and then trimmed all the trees in the yard.  It is amazing how much more sunlight shines into our house now.

On Sunday, we drove up to Wausau and helped Peter’s parents lay a brick patio/walkway.  On Monday, we borrowed our neighbor’s lawn edger and edged the sidewalks and driveway.  Then we blew/swept off all of the sidewalks and driveway.  The yard looks very nice and neat now.  Peter also swept off the deck and tried to rid it of the monster spiders.  I have to admit that I very rarely go out onto our deck because there are so many spiders.  We are hoping that there will be fewer spiders now that we have cut down most of the tree branches that were hanging over it.

Peter’s parents have a very large garden and sent us home with a ton of produce.  We have corn, zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and beans.  Tomorrow Peter and I have Awanas training but starting Wednesday I will be baking, freezing and mashing (for Cailey’s baby food) all of the produce. 

I am going to bed tonight feeling very accomplished.  Here are some pics of the kids.

Cailey is Six Months Old

Cailey is six months old today.  Her big accomplishments for the month are learning to sit on her own (she’s still a little wobbly, though), eating rice cereal and getting her first tooth (which she got today).  Cailey is well into the ‘reaching/grabbing/shoving into mouth’ stage.  Everything she gets her hands on goes into her mouth . . . probably because she is teething. 

We didn’t have any problems with the teething.  Cailey seemed a little more sensitive this last week and we had two nights where she was extra fussy and more difficult to get to sleep but that was about it.  I didn’t even know she was teething until I felt the tooth this afternoon.

Cailey weighs exactly 14 pounds and is 25 1/2 inches long. 

Cailey - Six Months

Sawyer is a Puggle

Our church (Appleton Alliance) has an Awanas program during each school year.  Basically, it is a Sunday school class mid-week.  The classes are every Tuesday night from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.  for children ages two years through grade school. 

Peter and I signed Sawyer up for the Cubbies Awana group.  This is for children ages 3-4 years old (for children one and two years prior to kindergarten).  We are planning to start Sawyer in kindergarten for the 2011/2012 school year so this is the age appropriate group.  Unfortunately, Sawyer is not fully potty trained so they recommended that we move him to the two year old program, Puggles.  They assured us that he would not be bored and that there are a handful of other ’summer three year olds’ in his class.  I think Sawyer will have a good time and enjoy being a Puggle.

Peter and I will also be in Awanas.  We have volunteered to be ‘leaders.’  We will be working with the Little Quackers group.  This is the youngest age group (newborn through two years old).  I volunteered for this group because I love the little babies.  It is not really a teaching class, more of a nursery class for young children of the other leaders.  Cailey will be able to be in the nursery with us so it suits us well. 

My brothers and sisters and I went to Awanas when we were younger so I know what it is all about.  On the other hand, this is the first Peter has even heard about the program.  For now, Peter will be working with me and the Little Quackers but once he sees what the program is all about, I think he will want to switch to working with the older kids.  I think he will have more fun teaching/playing games/planning activities for the grade school age children. 

I am looking forward to a fun and rewarding school year with the Awanas program.  I’m sure we will all have a good time learning/doing God’s work.

Cailey is 5 Months Old

Cailey - 5 Months

Cailey turns 5 months old today.  She weighs 13.4 pounds and is 25 inches long. 

This past month, Cailey learned how to blow bubbles with her lips and how to fake cough.  Sawyer never did the fake coughing thing so I was a little surprised this morning when Cailey was doing it.  At first I thought she was sick but after each cough she would smile and giggle.  After a few minutes, I figured out that she was coughing on purpose.   Throughout the day, I would cough at her and she would return my cough with her cough.  It was very fun

We gave Cailey her first cereal last week.  She ate it really well and seemed to like it.  We had hoped that it would fill her belly a little more before bed time so that she wouldn’t wake up at night to eat.  That didn’t happen, though.  She still wakes up to eat once per night.  Since she did so well with the cereal we will continue to give it to her.