Anne (pointing to her heart): Jesus is in my heart.
Anne (pointing to Faith): Jesus is in your heart.
[pause]
Anne: Why so many Jesus?
Recently in Baby Category
Though many describe parenting as instinctive, Faith and I discovered how important it is to be conscious about the reactions we exhibit to our kiddos behaviour.
Two days ago Faith fell asleep. Anne continued her doodling, or so she thought. When Faith woke she discovered a lock of her hair on the floor. Anne had decided to play hairdresser on her sleeping mother.
What Faith told me that night was an important lesson. She had decided to be angry at Anne’s actions, hoping to prevent any further snipping exercises, but in retrospect realised that being angry was the wrong course of action to take. Anne wasn’t defiant as she sometimes is when in the wrong, but confused. After all, her grandmother cuts her hair on a regular basis, and she was just mimicking what adults do with a pair of scissors.
This evening Anne wanted a piece of buttered toast. After toasting and buttering it, I put it on her plate, and she took the plate out to the living room. On the way she fumbled and the bread fell unto the the floor. Buttered-side up, thank goodness.
My initial reaction was a groan of frustration - it was a fair amount of work getting that slice of bread toasting to perfection. Anne immediately looked down and whispered “I’m sorry”. It would have easily been out of earshot if I were going through the typical parental tirade of how hard life is…but I heard it because I was at the crossroads of making a decision on how to deal with this.
I squatted down, opened my arms and asked her to hug me. You should have seen the smile on that face. As we embraced I told her that it was ok, and that accidents happen. I brushed the piece of toast, which she duly consumed, butter smeared over her face and all.
I was too lazy to toast another piece of bread. :)
Anne just told me a minute ago:
When I grow up, I’ll have a baby.
Time to take that shotgun out of the storeroom.
The extremes of parenting styles, from least draconian to most:
- You and your spouse adapts to the newborn’s schedule
- The newborn learns to fit to your schedule
- You all give up your schedules and adopt Gina Ford’s timesheet
Faith brought Caleb to the doctor’s for his medical examination. At one month old, he weighs 4.6kg. He was 2.75kg at birth. That’s a 70% increase. Scary.
A few moments ago, he deposited a significant amount of that weight into his diaper. Where Anne craps like a World War 2 sniper, Caleb simply lays down the law. I’m sure he changed the total amount of matter in the universe with that last poop.
Oh, the other difference between boys and girls: pee is now omni-directional. Every diaper change is a potential hosing down of the changing surface, your clothes and the car in the garage.
That’s the washing and rinsing we’ve had to do yesterday night. Caleb hit the sheets twice, and Anne didn’t make it to the toilet bowl on time.
Woohoo.
