Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Walkin' on Sunshine

It's funny the way kids think. Caleb, on the way out of the church tonight after Awana, said, "The sun's gone down! It went down into the ground. Now we're walking on the sun." Immediately I start humming, I'm walkin' on sunshine...

Then we went to "Taco Banana," as Caleb likes to call it. (Man, Cabana has gotten a ton of our money since they opened here in January!) Caleb has this thing lately with drive-thrus. He asks me to roll down his window in the back so that he can "talk to the lady" too. He's so dang cute. He'll sit back there quietly until the person at the window starts talking to me, then he'll yell out, "HI!!" It almost always takes the drive-thru person off-guard, and they almost always start laughing. It is actually a great way to get free stuff! So far he's gotten a free milk and several kids' toys.

When we got home, we ate dinner. (I know, I'm a bad mommy. Here we were eating dinner at 8:45 at night. But that's just what happens on Awana nights.) Caleb has a methodology about eating his meals. He will eat all of the "good" stuff--cheese, bread, crackers, ham--and when he gets down to just the fruit or veggies on his plate, he'll announce that he's either tired and wants to go to sleep or he has to potty. Tonight was no exception. When the only thing left on his plate was his banana, he announced, "I'm so tired. I want to go to bed."

Not this time, mister! He'd already pulled the I-have-to-potty trick at lunch to get out of eating his banana, so I decided that this time I was sticking to my guns. I calmly said, "You're not getting up until you eat a bite of banana."

Well, I might as well have told him I was going to cut his right arm off. "Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!" He yelled, he pushed away his food, he whined, he complained, he appealed to Scott. He had all this energy left to throw a hissy fit, but according to him he had no energy to eat one measly bite of banana. I reiterated. "You will not leave this table until you have a bite of banana."

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" This time he pushed his chair back from the table so that he was about 2 feet away from it. I just turned my back to him and started doing other things while he pouted. I wasn't going to play that game. A couple of minutes later, I turned around and looked at Caleb. He was asleep, sitting up in his chair.

You win. I carried him to bed.

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Earlier today we went to the pediatrician for Caleb's 2-week follow-up from his ear infection. I told her more about the "flu" that Caleb ended up catching on top of his ear infection, which Scott later got, then I got. She said it sounded more like rotavirus. Seriously? Once when Caleb was about 13 months old, Scott, Caleb, and I all got rotavirus at the same time. That was the most miserable I've ever been! That includes childbirth and gall bladder disease. I remember not being able to walk from one room to the other without stopping to rest. It really was that bad.

But this round of rota was much lighter--evidently after you've had it once, it doesn't get as bad the second time around. Lucky us, huh? Isaac didn't get it because these days there's a vaccine for it, praise God!

One more note from the pedi's visit: Caleb's ear hasn't completely healed. So, he is supposed to take Allegra twice a day for the next 2 weeks to see if that will help clear it up.

Phew. Enough with all this sick stuff! I truly hope this is the last post for a long time that I tag with "illness!"

2 comments:

Mandy Hornbuckle said...

Ha. You think you're bad for not eating until 8:45. We don't eat until 10:30 every single night (that's when Jack gets home). And it's now 12:20 AM after AWANA and I have yet to get up and get us something to eat. My kids are going to starve to death.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday Lupe, and I were reading your email on grammar. When Lupe emailed you back I said, "Hey, you didn't put a comma after your name." You, know where he sign your name at the end of the letter. Eeeks! I was just teaching this to the kids and I forgot what it's called.

Anyway, Lupe replied, "She didn't." and we both looked at each other and laughed.

I said she probably didn't put a comma after her name because she has all those little flowers under her name.

About your picky eater. I know it's so hard. Especially when it could be from being tired. Number one rule, don't let them get away with anything that is a sin. Pouting, whining all that is not pleasing to God. Figure out how you want to deal with it.

With are Young ones, we dealt with it immediately. We don't have them sit in the corner or anything because they are so young that they'll probably forget why they are there.

Figure out what works for your family. Once you dealt with that, come back to the table.

The actual eating their food is a bit harder. One thing is just to keep reminding them that Jesus gave us this food and it's wrong to waste it. Read stories etc.

Maybe instead of putting a whole banana on his plate, put the two bites that you want him to finish. Make sure you didn't put more than he can eat.

If he doesn't finish everything on his plate, then no dessert. Make sure you have some really good desserts for a while.

If he pushes his plate away, then again deal with his disobediance, come back to the table and give him bread and water. No dessert after. If he is hungry later he gets bread and water again.

Don't forget to be consistant.

Sorry, it got long and I know sounds mean. It's not like your yelling or mad at him. You do everything in a loving way.

Anyway, those are just some suggestions. Pray and ask God, he'll help you out ;)Actually that should be the #1 rule.

You don't know how many times I have excused myself, went to the bathroom got down on my knees and prayed. Okay, did some crying too =)

In Him,
Linda<><
www.homeschooling6.com