Ooops!

We have another favorite baby book author! Her name is Sandra Boynton and her chubby books are ADORABLE! We have a few and absolutely love them. We are hoping for some more for his birthday, especially ner Doggies book. Oh and visit her website...it made us laugh!

compromise

I have a son who will not eat vegetables. It has been such a struggle until...I decided to get smart. Don't get me wrong, I still make him take one bite even if it means forcing it into his mouth, because sometimes he thinks he doesn't like it and then when he tates it, he finds out he does. But to be able to get more veggies in him I resorted to my favorite cookbook right now. It is called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. She has kid friendly recipes that have certain veggies hidden in them. She has tested, and retested these and says they are the best of the best. I have tried the chicken nuggest with brocoli, mozzarella sticks with cauliflower, pancakes with sweet potatoes, pita pizzas with spinach, applesauce muffins with carrots, and my personal favorite...Macaroni and cheese with cauliflower! It is the best homemade mac and cheese ever! I am so thrilled with this book and even excited to cook some meals for us grown-ups out of it. Everything I have cooked has been really yummy and Israel has eaten them up! He is eating veggies and he doesn't even know it!!!!

Decisions

Some decisions are easy to make, but some are really hard. I have come to find out that most of the decisions I make as a mom are hard ones because everything is so important. What time should I put him down for a nap might seem like a silly decision, but depending on which nap it is could determine how the rest of you day goes. What kind of food should I let enter my child's body is an EXTREMELY hard question because some foods that you would like your child to eat, he won't, so you end up settling for the not so ideal sometimes, at least right now until he is older and I can demand more of him.

Now we have entered the phase of more decisions since he is crawling and standing up and overall doing a lot more. We, Joel and I, have decided to do what is called Blanket time. Some of you might have done a version of this with a play pen where they spend a concentrated time alone in a confined area occupying themselves. Blanket time is like this except you have to train them to use self control and not leave the blanket. There are not sides keeping them in. I favor this method for a couple reason. 1. It makes them or should I say gives them the opportunity to obey at all times while they are on the blanket. 2. It is mobil! You can lay down any blanket, and boom you have your boundaries! I have seen this play out before my eyes very successfully and knew that this is what I wanted to impliment in my home. So we started this yesterday. The first time lasted probably less than a minute, before I had to bring him back to the blanket with a firm "no" and a swat on the hand 3 times! So that ended the first session. The second session lasted longer. This is going to be hard, because of course I do NOT like causing my child to cry, but if it is for his benefit, which it is, then it is all worth it.

The next decision I have had to make is what to do about nap and bed time. Nap time is worse. Since he has figured out how to stand up, this is is favorite thing to do especially at nap time. I don't know what it is, but somehow he can be falling asleep while playing, and then the minute I put him in bed...play time!!! I have spent 30 long min. going in and laying him back down just to have him pop right back up again. I have had people tell me to just leave them alone and eventually they will get tired and fall asleep. I didn't feel comfortable with this because I felt like it was giving to much freedom to such a little guy. He doesn't know what is best for him yet. That is why God gave him me! So me leaving him to decide when he will go to sleep wasn't appealing to me. So after much thought, and prayer that the Lord would soften Israel heart to instruction even at this small age, I have decided that deciplinary actions must occur. A wonderful mom whom I highly respect affirmed my decision. So today after laying him down, I went back in there to find him standing up and laughing at me, but in a way that sounded like he knew he wasn't supposed to be standing. After a firm no, I laid him down and he went to sleep. This time was easy and I know they won't all be that way, but I can still be encouraged.

This or That?

I am now apart of the group with crawling toddlers! And I love it! It is so nice that Israel can get to where he wants to go...although sometimes I have to say "no" or put him somewhere else. Today before I got in the shower I hid the heater that we have in his bedroom, put the trash can on his dresser and closed the closet doors. This is new for me, but so far we are enjoying it marvel at how he moves. But my question is, and maybe some of you moms can help me out, is what do I let him play with and what is off limits? I know it is going to be somewhat different for me than for you since we have different stuff in our homes, and of course there are the no brainers: The toilet is off limits along with the outlet plugs, heaters, trash cans, drawers that smash his fingers etc. Today he was opening and closing my drawer and the tips of his fingers got caught. He wasn't pushing very hard but it still hurt him....maybe he won't do that again! So if you have been doing this longer than me and have found that some things around the house are okay, let me know!

We will be starting blanket time soon, so I will let you know how that goes.