Sweetest
Posted: March 4, 2013 Filed under: Little Women 3 Comments
I haven’t had energy or motivation to do anything lately, but this sweet girl still likes me. I like her too.
Violent
Posted: February 4, 2013 Filed under: Little Women, War and Peace 4 CommentsJune has entered an unpleasant phase – she hits and punches Evan whenever she gets upset. It’s obvious that she does it to hurt him. Of course she goes straight into time out for hitting, punching, kicking, slapping, and so on, and we always have a talk afterwards about why those things are bad – and she can demonstrate what “soft” or “nice” behavior would be. But she’s so impulsive that it seems she can’t resist responding with violence when she thinks Evan has wronged her.
I know she’ll eventually get the message that what she’s doing isn’t ok, so for now I plan to stick with the time outs and discussion – June is smart enough that she understands the concept, it’s just hard to apply. Because she’s 2.
Evan went through a similar phase at a similar age, and he grew out of it. But it started when Jarom was in Korea for an internship while I was pregnant with June, so I had a hard time dealing with it. Fortunately it seems that a lot of things are easier the second time around, and I’m not as worried about June turning into a violent criminal. (At all, really. Can you imagine?) I don’t mean that I let her bad behavior slide or that I act unconcerned – I just don’t spend extra time fretting that I’m not doing a good job of parenting. For that reason, at least.
If your kids skipped this phase, please don’t tell me. I’d like to assume it’s standard.
Hard to believe this ball of cuteness could ever be mean-spirited.
Deliberate
Posted: December 27, 2012 Filed under: Dangerous Book for Boys, Little Women Leave a commentI’ve tried my best to eliminate fussy demands in my house (from the kids, at least). From the time Evan was little, Jarom and I have maintained that we can’t understand him if he fusses when he talks. Consistency has paid off, and it makes my life a little easier by giving me a go-to response to whining.
On top of the “I can’t understand you” approach, we’ve tried to encourage language development by having Evan ask for things in whole sentences as early as possible. It forces him to think about what he’s saying and avoid that annoying “I want a sandwiiiiiiiiiich” sort of fussing. The funny thing is, when we started asking Evan to use a whole sentence when he made a request, he’d speak very slowly and deliberately, clapping his hands once for each syllable. It turned into a rather robotic-sounding sentence, with the exception of a drop in tone at the end (as with a statement) instead of a rise (as with a question). (Surely there is a linguistic term for these tonal changes. Please share if you know what it is.)
The extra funny thing is that with June talking more and more, she perfectly mimics Evan’s robotic and deliberate tone when I remind her to ask nicely for something. I don’t think I’ve done much in the way of asking for whole sentences from her, and I’m usually just looking for a “please,” so the fact that she so accurately copies Evan amuses me. June normally uses decent grammar for her age, but it gets choppy when she switches to the slow-deliberate-robot sentences: “Please… can… have… more… milk!” Interestingly, June’s sentences most often end with exclamation points.
Aside from a few small-scale incidents, the kids have been on much better behavior for the past few days. Evan did earn his stocking back and his enthusiasm made Christmas lovely (more on that tomorrow). Today, I’m enjoying my robot kids and their funny mannerisms.
Jarom
Mika
hilleries 