Helpful Mom

A friend of mine commented on my last post about how often we find ourselves as moms constantly focusing on the bad behavior and not rewarding their good behavior.  I too can find myself in this trap and have had to retrain myself to encourage and recognize their good behavior.  I have noticed with my older daughter in particular that she responds much better to praise than if you yell at her for being bad.  Kids crave and thrive on your encouragement.  Obviously all kids are very different and respond differently to different consequences but they all need our love and encouragement.  But it can feel very unnatural to be telling them what a good job it was that they finished their sandwich or remembered to flush the toilet when it’s something they are supposed to do anyways.  But making the effort is worth it in the end because they are more likely to do it again in the future because it makes mom happy.  Apparently I said it so often to my girls that they started telling me that I was doing a good job (and giving me thumbs up) when I’d put dinner on the table.  That makes it worth it doesn’t it!

So after reading Creative Correction I began using one of the hundreds of ideas for teaching your children to obey and behave.  It’s a very simple yet effective idea.  Each time the girls say please, thank you, or share unprompted we put a penny in a jar with their name on it.  When they get 100 pennies I take them to the dollar store and they can pick one toy.  So far it has worked really well and they remember to say please and thank you most of the time.  Katrina’s favorite is to ask for something please, I get a penny, thank you, I get two pennies. All in that sing songy voice of little kids.  But it has really helped with them remembering to be polite and has also had an interesting side effect.  They end up catching each other being good too!  Katrina will sing out, Mikayla gets a penny.  It’s simple, it’s easy, and highly effective.  It’s so much easier to encourage good behavior from the beginning then to try and retrain them after the fact.  We just need to remember to do it.

Another trick I have to remind myself to do is when Mikayla is whining, whining, whining.  Driving me crazy while I’m trying to do something, always when I’m trying to do something isn’t it ;P  I have to stop myself and just take her to the couch and sit for a few minutes just cuddling her.  And that’s it.  Usually all she wanted was a little attention, then she’ll go off and play and I can go back to what I was doing.  I have to remind myself that nothing I’m trying to get done is as important as my little girls, because they will only be little for a short time.  My husband won’t mind if dinner is a bit late if he comes home and things are in control.  But if dinners on time but I’ve spent the last half hour yelling at them to leave me alone what good is it?

Has this ever happened to you?  My daughter says I’m hungry.  So you start pulling everything out of the diaper bag one at a time to which she says no, no, no to each one.  Then you have the whining and fussing as you try to explain that is all there really is, as if you are hiding the good stuff somewhere.  So one day I decided on this quick easy fix.  I bought a lunch box that I keep in our diaper bag.  Each morning before we go out I make sure it’s packed with about three different healthy choices, like a baggy of cereal, grapes, and apple slices.  Then when she asks for food I can just hand her the lunch box and she can pick out whatever she likes.  It gives her healthy, non-messy options, and lets her exercise her ability to choose for herself.  And it ended that debate about if there was anything else, now she can plainly see that all her choices are right there to pick from.

And we keep the treats separately in the diaper bag.  They only get any kind of treat if they have finished a serving of food.  So if she finishes the cereal she would get a Kellog’s fruit snack.  Or they might get a lollipop.  It works really well!  The other day I took Katrina shopping and she’d asked for a sucker and I told her she could have one and we’d get one for her sister too who wasn’t with us, but that she’d have to wait til we’d paid for it and got in the car to eat it.  So she agreed, but when we went out to the car she spotted her bag of cereal she’d started before going into the store and she gave me her sucker back!  Saying she had to finish her cereal first.  I was stunned and amazed.  And what’s funny is I’ve had her do that again since then!  It’s one of those small victories that you have to step back and appreciate.  Realizing that they are learning even when sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

I used to feel guilty about rewarding eating with treats but then I read this great book called Creative Correction which said that even God used rewards and incentives with the Israelites.  He would say if you obey your parents you will have a long life, or if you follow me I will take you into the promised land.  So if even God offers incentives to His children then why can’t I.  And I recently heard Dr. James Dobson say that the whole world is operated by incentives and rewards.  You go to work and get a paycheck.  Noone is going to work if they aren’t receiving something in return.  So there is nothing wrong with offering reasonable rewards or incentives.  I’m not saying go crazy buying them stuff but there’s no reason to feel guilty about rewarding your child.  It works, my kids know not to ask for treats all the time because they know the answer is no.  And they are learning that it’s important to eat the healthy things first, if you aren’t hungry enough to finish the good stuff then you certainly don’t have room for a lollipop, and learning what foods are good for you and what things are just not.

Today the moms group I lead met at Springdale Farm in Spencerport, NY.  The farm is definitely on my kids top five favorite outings list.    Upon arriving the first thing you come to is the play ground which is great when you are meeting friends, that way your kids are occupied while you wait for everyone to arrive.  The farm is free to visit, although they do set up a petting zoo during the summer months which costs $1 per person and is free for under 2yr.  Once the kids are done on the playground they definitely have animals on their minds so we head straight for the petting zoo.  This is the star feature for the kids and we usually spend the majority of our time there.  They have goats, sheep, and shetland ponies

Climbing the hay bales at Springdale Farms

roaming free for you to pet and feed(there are quarter vending machines with food).  My favorite time to visit is in the early spring when all the animals are having their babies.  When I took the girls in April we were able to pet 3 weeks old goats!  Sooo cute!  The goats are bigger now but still very cute and friendly, not crazy like at some petting zoos I’ve gone to.  One we’d gone to the goats would butt you out of the way so they could eat straight out of the vending machine!  But not here, there is plenty of hay around so you don’t even need to buy feed.  Although one of the goats was set on proving the point that goats will really try to eat anything, it tried to eat one of my friends shirts, and tried to chew on my girls stroller!  Anyways they also have various breeds of chickens in pens in the petting zoo area and a pair of turkeys too.  They have also created a pyramid out of hay bales which the kids and kids(er goats) can climb on and through as they’ve made tunnels under it to crawl through.

Once your kids have finally had enough of petting and feeding the animals you can go check out the other barns.  One of which you can go upstairs in to check out some hands on learning displays about life on a farm.  Or you can walk around the large pens which contain more sheep, horses, and the

Katrina and her best friend David at Springdale Farm

biggest pigs you’ll ever see.  The one pig weighs in at 1000 pounds!  There are also a pair of peacocks and  lots of bunnies.  Once the kids have had enough of animals we move on to the beautiful gardens, there is an assortment of them which are labeled and divided up nicely to help teach the kids about where food comes from.  They have a “pizza” garden which grows tomatoes and onions, and garlic, etc.  And there are vegetable and berry gardens, and a cute play area surrounded by tall plants like sunflowers that create a hedge around it.  Then you see a green house which you might think about skipping, which I did the first number of times we went and then one day my girls followed a butterfly inside and discovered a sand table inside!  They love it and I usually end up finding a chair and watching them play for a half hour til they decide we should go see the animals one more time before heading back out to the playground again.

There is also a working dairy farm on the farm which you can tour for an additional fee if you are interested.  I have taken the girls once to see it and found it very interesting because they have this amazing automated system for milking the cows that washes them, milks them and monitors their

Mikayla feeding the baby goats

production all by itself.   I will definitely take the girls again in a few years when they are old enough to understand what they are being told, but they enjoyed it simply because they got to see cows and newborn calves.  Tours are available Monday through Saturday at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm. Cost is $3 for Adults (ages 12-62), $2 for Youth (ages 3-11) and Seniors (age 63+) and free for Kids (ages 2 and under).

The farm itself is owned by Monroe County so it’s a county park but Heritage Christian homes leases it

to provide jobs and training for people with developmental disabilities.  Springdale Farm is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 4:00 p.m. Please note that the farm is closed on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Yesterday I had to drive all the way to N. Greece to pick something up from someone from Craig’s list. So I decided we should make a day of it.  I decided that I would take my two girls to the beach for the first time ever by myself.  We have tried two different times in the past to take the girls to the beach with disappointing results.  We were on vacation in Rhode Island, renting a beach house no less.  And our girls were terrified of the ocean!  Here we thought they’d just love it because it’s the ultimate sand box with endless possibilities.  But they were afraid of the ocean itself, the loud crashing waves to be exact.  Our second try was this year when we went to visit a friend in Boston.  It went a little bit better, at least one out of two children liked it, because it was a rocky beach.  She enjoyed filling her buckets with rocks to take home.  The other one wouldn’t even leave the grassy area.

So what made me think I should try taking my kids to the beach this time?  My sense of fun.  I thought if we were that close to Lake Ontario already I should certainly give it a try.  If they didn’t like it at least we had an adventure.  And I can’t believe that I have lived here all my life and I can only count on one hand how many times I can remember going to the lake!  I’ve been to see Niagara Falls many more times than I’ve been to the lake.  And there is one big key difference, instead of trying the ocean again I was taking them to a lake where there are very small to no waves.  And boy am I glad I took the chance.  We had a blast!  I can’t wait to take them again and hopefully for a longer period of time.

We went to Hamlin State Park(north west of Greece, NY).  It is a beautiful state park right on Lake Ontario.  There are sandy beaches with lifeguards on duty.  There are at least 2 playgrounds of the newer plastic variety with rubber mulch underfoot.  There are a number of shelters with restrooms and water fountains about.  There is lots of shaded areas and picnic tables scattered about.  For a Thursday in summer it was fairly empty so you felt like you were nearly alone with your kids.  The beaches are clearly raked out each day and kept pretty clean.  The water was very clean and clear.  And the view was beautiful.  We spent nearly an hour just digging in the sand trying to create moats and riverways to channel water.  It was such fun for all three of us.  And the girls even got their feet wet in the lake!

If you are interested in a trip to Hamlin State Park you should know that it does cost $7 cash to get in.  They don’t take credit cards and the nearest ATM is quite far away so you should come prepared.  Another tip is if you are thinking of taking multiple trips to State Parks you may be interested in the Empire Passport.   The passport provides unlimited day use vehicle entry to most state parks and recreation facilities for just $59.  To pack correctly for the beach you should think of all possibilities.  Obviously they will be playing with sand so you will need a couple shovels and pails, containers to use as molds are optional.  A change of clothes and towels, sunscreen, and enough food and drinks because there’s nowhere near to buy anything.  Also I took my handy dandy Travel Potty with us because the walk from the beach to the bathroom to way to far for a toddler to hold it.

I have always made my girls bottles and sippy cups en masse.  My girls had problems latching so I pumped and used bottles, so to make it easier in the middle of the night I would make up a days worth of bottles at one time, then I could just warm one up when needed.  So naturally I did the same thing when my girls moved to sippy cups.  My youngest is on a nearly all liquid diet (her choice, not mine) and goes through 5-6 cups a day!  So I make up her cups either the evening before or that morning before leaving for the day.  Two with milk and the rest 1/2 water 1/2 juice.  Then one day I was reading (big surprise) and they went a step further by suggesting making up all the cups at once but then also putting them on the lowest shelf in the fridge so your kids can get their own drinks!  Saving you more valuable time and teaching them some independence and self reliance, and how to close the fridge door after themselves.

I have found an inexpensive one on Lakeside Collections for $19.95  What would you use a laminator for?  All kinds of things!  As I mentioned before I used mine to laminate the menus I made for my kids.  But I have also done such things as the following:  I made a picture schedule for my girls that is three sheets of colored paper with the days of the week along the tops that are laminated.  Then I printed out clip art pictures of all the activities we do regularly like go to church, school, library, stores, museums, friends, haircuts, etc.  We can then laminate those pictures and cut them out so I can tape them on her schedule.  That way they can begin to learn the days of the week and their order, and it helps with that question of when and where are we going.  I can point to it and say see today we are going to the store and then  to grandmas, and tomorrow we are going to the playground.  I also printed out the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow so we could move those each day at bedtime so she could understand about those terms too.

My oldest is obsessed with routine and ritual, and she really digs maps like Dora the Explorer.  And she likes to try and add items to her bedtime ritual.  So to end the endless items being added to bedtime and to help any babysitters understand why she’s fallen apart because they’ve missed some vital step they wouldn’t have thought of, like dancing around the room twice.  So I made a picture “map” with clip art that covered her entire bedtime routine.  It helped keep her from adding extra things to her routine since we told her she could only do what was on her map.  It also gave her independence because she liked to take the map and go do it all by herself.  And it gave easy directions to anyone who may be watching the kids who are unfamiliar with their rituals.  I also made picture maps of their bedtime rules so they could read the rules with me just by looking at it.  She was trying to add lots of extra rules to stall bedtime.

Other ways I’ve used the laminator is to create travel bingo games.  You create bingo cards by using clip art or pictures from magazines of things you would normally see on a road trip.  Such as a blue truck or a bus.  If you laminate your sheets then the kids can use dry erase markers to circle what they spot until they get bingo.  I created a couple different sheets so they aren’t looking for the same things at the same time.

And I’m currently working on cutting out pictures from sales flyers of items we regularly buy at the grocery stores so the girls can do a scavenger hunt.  I can circle the items that we will be looking for that week and they can help me look for them while we go through the grocery store.

To find lots of great FREE clip art you can check out MicroSoft’s Website.

Mendon Public Library partners with the Memorial Art Gallery to offer a Family Pass to the Gallery. With this pass, entrance to the Gallery is just $5 for an individual or family (of any number). Without the pass, general admission is $7 for adults, $2 for children 6 to 18 years, and free for children under 5 years.

This is a wonderful, low-cost way to expose your children (and a friend or two!) to the many shapes, colors and sizes of art.

The Memorial Art Gallery Pass circulates for a one week period. It cannot be put on hold nor can it be renewed, and it must only be returned at Mendon Public Library.

I don’t know if your kids are anything like mine but they’ve had a love hate relationship with baths since the day they were born. When they were babies they hated the bath and I refused to bath them unless my husband was home to help me since they screamed bloody murder and were so fragile and slippery. Then when they were older and could sit up on their own they loved it. They would just sit in that tub for an hour and play. I would get a book or magazine and lay next to the tub and let them play to their hearts content. There were even days when Katrina even wanted to take two baths! Now we are back to the disliking it again, so we have to think of creative ways to entice them into the tub. It’s not the playing they dislike, it’s just the hair washing. So we have to get them into the tub somehow. Once they are in there they will play forever before the dreaded deed needs doing.  (This is also a great time to clean the bathroom while they are occupied, keep all your supplies in one place so you won’t have to leave the kids unattended.)

Some of the ideas and things we have found works to get them excited about a bath are water coloring tablets, shaving cream paint, body paints, soap crayons, and rotating bath toys so they are “new” to them.

Amazonsells a variety of different bath coloring tablets, which are little tablets that dissolve in the tub and color the water different colors.  They generally come in a mix of red, yellow, and blue tablets but it gives you another chance to teach your kids how mixing different colors make new ones, like red and blue make purple.

Shaving cream paint is simply shaving cream, like Colgate or Barbasol which you can get for $0.50-$1 on sale, and mix it with a couple drops of food coloring.  Then the kids can “paint” pictures on the walls of your shower.  It washs off easily and does not stain your kid or your tub.  Just make sure your kids not going to try and eat it.

Body paints are fun too, since they can paint the tub and themselves.  In essence they can clean your tub for you ;P  and clean their own body without knowing it.  Body paints can either be boughtBathtub Finger Painting Kit or you can make your own.  Take 1/4 cup clear bath wash, 2 Tbs. corn starch, and a few drops of food coloring just mix and have fun.  Soap crayons can also be bought

Bath Crayons or made. To make you need 1 cup unscented soap flakes or grate a bar of soap mix it with 2 Tbs. hot water, mix in what ever food coloring you like and put in molds like an ice cube tray or candy molds. Let them harden for a few days and then pop em out and let the kids test them out.

And for bath tub toys we love the Foam Alphabet Letters that stick to the walls when wet so your kids can be playing and learning at the same time. As they get bigger they can practice spelling words too. Of course the regular tub toys like boats and ducks are always a hit. There are ducks and frogs you can get that have LCDs in them that blink different colors when put into the water. My girls love these and they are great for trips in the car after dark too. We also have bought collections of sea animals that have whales and octopuses and such in them, which we will pull out special and then put away for a while. I love these because they are learning the different types of ocean animals while playing.  A  sand wheel can be used in the tub too, as can lots of other sand box toys. They love filling things with water and pouring them one to another. An kind of container will do, even empty shampoo bottles and yogurt containers, fun does not have to be expensive or fancy.

As for the actual washing there are a variety of tricks we have tried.  Some have worked and some didn’t for us.  Some kids like to wear swim goggles while you wash their hair since for most kids the issue usually revolves around the fear of getting water on the face.  It didn’t work for our kids although they did love wearing the goggles and it’s worth the money spent to see their little faces squashed into goggles.  You should try it just for a good laugh.  You could tape pictures to the ceiling to have your child look up at since it can be a challenge to get them to keep looking up.   We found that their toy watering can worked well as well toy buckets with a wash cloth on their forehead  to keep the water off their face.  Some kids like it if they feel in control and they can do the dumping of the water themselves.  And we just recently bought a showerhead with a hand shower so we can wash them with more control.  Whatever you try make it quick and easy.  Baths should be fun not torture.

Has this ever happened to you?  My daughter says this morning, “I’m hungry”.  “What would you like?”, I ask.  “I don’t know” is the response.  Then the suggestions begin, how about grapes, no, strawberries, no, yogurt, no, sandwich, no, oompaloompas, yes!  She just gets silly after a while and I realize it’s become a game.  That is why a few months back I created a picture menu for my girls.  The idea came from a friend of mine who had made menus by cutting out pictures of food and made menus for the kids to play restaurant.  I took that idea and ran with it.  I used clip art to create a simple picture menu of the food items they like to eat on a regular basis and left a blank area where I could tape on “Specials”  such as cantelopes which we don’t always have around the house each week.  Once the specials have been consumed I take them off the menu.  That way when the kids are hungry but don’t know what they want they can peruse the pictures until they decide instead of my having to play 20 questions.  My husband laughed at me because it took a bit of time to make but it’s saved me lots of time in the long run.  I also laminated the menu to keep it intact for years to come.  This allows you to tape pictures to it without tearing the paper and you can even write on it temporarily with dry erase markers.

Speaking of dry erase markers, they are life savers at dinner time.  We have a collection of laminated place mats for the girls that include Dora the Explorer Laminated Placemat, Blues Clues, and Sesame St. among others.  They have things like practicing your letter and number writing, games, and color and shape matching.  And they help dinner go smoother by entertaining the kids while we finish our meal when they are done or not interested in eating.  I have found these mats at Riteaid and Walmart for $1-$3 and have found them at garage sales and thrift stores.  We keep a cupful of dry erase markers on the table and rotate the mats to keep them interesting.

To make food fun I like to use a melon baller on cantelopes and watermelon, somehow foods more fun if it’s shaped.  It only takes a few minutes more but the food gets eaten even faster.  I also use this trick on sandwiches with cookie cutter shapes.  You can cut out big shapes or you can cut out lots of little ones.  We’ve had penguin, angels, leaves, even foot sandwiches.  You can make shapes with your pancakes, like one mom who doers a letter of the day so she’ll make pancake letters.   And I’m a big proponent of food color.  Have you ever had purple pancakes or orange waffles, or yes we have done it green eggs!  My husband even colored mashed potatoes once.  Kids are so much more excited if they get to pick what color their food could be.  And you can teach them some fun tricks about how if you mix red and blue it makes purple or yellow and blue makes green.  And let them “help”  I know it’s messy but if they’re helping they are not standing by whining about if it’s done yet?  And if they help make it they are more likely to eat it.  I also stick cereals like fruit loops or cheerios on strings so they can have necklaces  to eat that are fun.  I will make the whole bag of cereal into necklaces at once and bag them individually so I can pack them up quickly when we are going out for the day.  They come in handy when grocery shopping or waiting at the doctors office.

Well I am Soooo excited to say that Mikayla has completely got the peeing part down pat.  She’s still working on the pooing part but come on it’s only been 5 days!  I am now completely sold on this potty party idea.  Even though it worked so well with Katrina I was still skeptical but figured I’d try with Mikayla.  If you know my girls at all you know that even though they look like twins they have completely opposite personalities, so that’s why I doubted.  But after going through it twice now I am amazed.  It’s not easy and it’s a long day but it’s worth it if it doesn’t take months to try to train a child.

I was talking with a friend today at the playground and I realized that I forgot to tell you about one more product I found pertaining to this subject.  It’s a toilet seat for your standard toilet that has childsized potty seat built into it, so it has one for adults And one for kids in one.  No separate seat to put on and off and have laying around, no extra potty toilet taking up space or having to empty buckets.  And this way after my kids are done using potty chairs we can still have one available when we have guests with kids. Potty Pal Standard Toilet Seat is available through Amazon or Target for $24.99