Tag: Mom

“We get what we get and we don’t throw a fit”

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We were out for dinner at our usual Monday night spot. When our food came Layton asked that we pray, so we did. We normally pray before dinner at home but it’s not a regular practice when we’re out. He then proceeded to say a “thank you” that he learned at school. Shortly after that he said “we get what we get and we don’t throw a fit“. I found the timing of the comment interesting considering he ordered what he normally orders and nothing was different about it. Seeing as he made the comment at dinner time I figured they were told at school they get whatever food is being served and we don’t throw a fit about it. The nice way of saying “deal with it”. When I asked Layton about it another day I didn’t get a straight answer as to when they said that at school. He said “we get what car we have and don’t get the car that someone else has”, relating to toy cars and you shouldn’t go take someone else’s because you don’t like the one you have. So this comment has stuck with me for several weeks now. I talked about it a little with a fellow father but am still dwelling on it in my mind.
Not knowing the context has perplexed me a little. I can understand the food situation. A childcare center/school has to take into consideration every child’s needs so the food selections are not vast and certainly not custom. I completely understand that. I was a little taken aback when he mentioned the car thing. Instead of saying “we get what we get and we don’t throw a fit” if the child doesn’t like the car they are given, suggest to them to ask another child if they would like to switch, encourage problem solving rather than “deal with it”. This may not work in every scenario and the child may still have to deal with what they have but making an attempt to get what you want and not succeeding builds resilience and develops their ability to control/understand emotions, compared with the feeling that this is what I’ve been given and don’t have a choice. I’m likely taking this to the extreme considering I don’t know what specific scenarios the phrase is used in at school. I’m also not an educator so this is from an outsider’s perspective and I generally will not question their teaching methods as I am not trained as an early-childhood educator.
I have used the phrase against him at home now that I know he’s aware of what it means. I’ve also tried to keep perspective on what I “force” on him. For example, he doesn’t like to pick out his clothes and if he does it’s likely what he wore the day before or something that is dirty. If he doesn’t like what I picked for him I tell him to go pick out what he wants to wear. He usually ends up wearing what I picked out because he brings back something that’s dirty, but I always give him the opportunity to wear what he wants. Same with doing things at home. I ask him what he wants to play rather than tell him what we’re going to play; however, there are times I will tell him no and to pick something else. I always try to provide an explanation if I say no. It’s not always received well but he always gets an explanation.
To summarize, I want him to make choices for himself and know that he has options. I also want to be sure he knows that even if he makes a choice he may not get what he wants. In situations where he is told what he gets he can always choose to have nothing at all. Eventually he will learn to evaluate accepting what is given and the consequence of the alternative, for now he’s a little young to comprehend that.
Now that I have successfully over-complicated a simple phrase, what are your thoughts on it?

I sent this out to my Pints with Pops email group and was quickly informed this is a children’s book. I feel very enlightened. The title is You get what you get by Julie Gassman. It is a fun read and I will definitely be reading it to my son.

Christmas Season with a 3 Year Old

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We’ve had a fun holiday season so far and are looking forward to the next week and a half getting to spend some quality time with family and friends.
As the Christmas season came into focus Layton found his book about the story of Christmas and Jesus’s birth, so we’ve spent lots of time reading that, many times it’s been read 3 or 4 times continuously. With that he also found his book about the story of Easter. So if you’re reading about Jesus’s birth you might as well read about Jesus’s death at the same time. This led to a more interesting conversation about Jesus coming back after he was buried. The conversation turned to Layton asking about Jesus coming back and that it was Jesus’s spirit. This led to Layton asking about Jesus’s body and “how he poop with no body”? The minds of toddlers are amazing.
Attention: Potential Santa spoiler. Stop reading if you are age 137 years or younger and do not wish to read Santa spoilers.
On the other end of the spectrum, Layton has been rather easy on Santa this year. He’s kept his request the same from the first ask through today. So Santa and his helpers haven’t had to pivot mid-season. It is also a reasonable ask so we are hopeful Santa can deliver. We are also of the mindset that mom and dad will step in for any “big” gifts and requests to Santa should remain modest as he needs to deliver to all the children and may be stretched too thin if he has to bring “big” gifts to everyone. Layton had three visits with Santa this year. Visits two and three were impromptu encounters. The second visit was a little sketchy and flirted with disaster. Layton got up on Santa’s lap and Santa asked Layton’s name. Layton responded “I tell you last week”. Ok, this should be interesting. My wife stepped in and informed Santa of his name. Then Santa asked what he would like for Christmas, same response, “I tell you last week”. Santa was at a loss. Again, my wife stepped in and got Layton and Santa out of what could have turned into an ugly situation. Layton asked after “why Santa not remember”? Again, props to my wife, she explained that there are millions of children that Santa talks to and he needs help remembering who each child is and what they want, that’s why he checks his list twice. He accepted that explanation, crisis averted… for this year. Consider this my apology in advance if my child ruins Santa for your children in any way now or in the future. He’s apparently too smart for his own good.

End of spoiler, continue reading.

With that, I hope you are able to take time to be with those who matter most to you. I hope you can embrace the time you have with your family and loved ones no matter how short the visit may be. I know, as you all do, this can be a stressful time of year going between family visits, parties, and preparing for your own festivities. Take time to stop and pause during it all, take a breath, and give a hug or a smile. We do all of the “hustle and bustle” so we can spend time with those that matter to us, be sure to stop the “hustle and bustle” and be present for the spending time part.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year!

Fire Truck Shirts

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Today was picture day at school. The big question in our household was “what will Layton wear for pictures?” Fire truck shirts are currently the only acceptable wardrobe piece for our little man. In an effort to have him look “nice” for his pictures we asked him to pick out a button up shirt from his closet in advance that he would be willing to wear. He did so without a challenge and we hung it on his dresser for today. My wife is typically gone in the morning when Layton gets up, so getting ready and dropping him off are my responsibility. It’s been that way from the beginning so we have a pretty solid routine down. It did not follow the typical routine this morning.

He got up, found me, and asked to read a book. So far so good. After our book I tell him it’s time to get ready for school. I reminded him it was picture day and he should get the shirt he picked out off his dresser. He responds “I no like that shirt.” I reminded him he picked it out and wanted to wear it. “I no like that shirt.” Ok, we’d like you to look “nice” for your pictures at school today, please pick a shirt out from your closet. “Me no like buttons.” Thus begins a lot of me yelling, him saying no, me trying to explain why he should wear a “nice” shirt for pictures, him saying no, me saying we want you to look nice in your pictures, he reluctantly put on a polo still saying no, me yelling, him crying, me yelling, him crying, then I gave myself a timeout. I then thought WTF am I doing? I’m arguing with a three year-old about what shirt to wear for school pictures. Why does that matter at all? Every reason I gave him, which were very few, to wear a “nice” shirt for pictures were completely idiotic and self-serving. The only people who would care what shirt he wore for his pictures were me and my wife. He hasn’t worn a shirt with buttons on since Christmas and before that I couldn’t tell you. We both calmed down and I asked him what shirt he wanted to wear. He said “this one” in a very somber tone, referring to the polo he had on. An incredibly heartbreaking compromise on his part, clearly in an effort to make me happy. We sat in his room for a while. I apologized for yelling, gave him a hug, and told him I loved him. I asked him what shirt do you really want to wear? He went to his drawer and pulled out a fire truck shirt. I said ok, let’s put it on. He was clearly very happy. I was as well. Whether he smiles in his pictures or not is one question but at least I’ll know he is himself in those pictures, not who I wanted him to look like. This may seem small but I am guessing it was huge for him.

Another thought that came to mind from this morning’s episode is why he doesn’t like buttoned shirts. I don’t know if this is the reason but it may make sense on some level. I work in an office environment and wear polo’s and button up shirts everyday. If I am wearing one and it’s not the normal “work time” Layton will ask “why you wearing work clothes?” If he associates those specific clothes with work, which would then mean me leaving him, I could see the deeper connection of him not liking buttoned shirts. Maybe I’m thinking too deep on it and he simply likes fire truck shirts that much. Either way this morning brought some needed perspective.

8 Pancakes

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I was not home to see this first hand but was able to partake in the cleaning effort after the fact. My wife picked Layton up from school on a Friday and he went to his room and she was doing some things in another room. This is pretty common for him to go to his room after school. The majority of the time he lays on the floor with a book and “reads” to himself. My wife had his monitor on and could only see the top of his head and heard him counting. He got to eight which is pretty exciting. She went in and asked what he was doing. He responded “making pancakes” with a big smile. “Making pancakes” equated to him counting the pancakes he was making… on his carpet… with petroleum jelly. A full, brand new jar, of petroleum jelly, all emptied onto his carpet in pancake form. Not something you can really be mad about because he’s just exploring, counting, and playing with something we didn’t even know was in his room. It was tucked way in the back of his top dresser drawer from when he was an infant and we never needed to use it; of course he would find it, they find everything that could make a mess. I got a phone call on my way home from work informing me what happened. This led to a lot of Googling how to get petroleum jelly out of carpet. A trip to the store to rent a rug doctor and clean carpets throughout the house before Christmas, because if you’re going to clean one room you might as well do the entire house. There are still a few small spots we couldn’t quite get out. Now it’s an ongoing battle with Dawn dish soap. That was not how we had planned to spend our Friday night.

ABC Reprise

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We were at our favorite Mexican restaurant this past Monday night, as we are every Monday night, and another couple came in with their new baby, 4 months old.  We exchanged pleasantries as we both had small children and went on with our evening.  It was interesting watching them interact with their child and I couldn’t help but think back 2 years ago when Layton was that tiny.  Seriously, how do they grow so fast?  I saw them getting so excited about the baby smiling and laughing, they were talking to each other about how big a milestone that was.  That got me thinking back to how I felt when Layton was achieving all these various milestones.  I have to be completely honest, I was nowhere near as excited as they were for their child or my wife was for Layton.  It’s not just the smiles or the laughs, I wasn’t all that excited about a first word or crawling or rolling over.  These are all huge things in a baby’s development and parents should rightfully be excited by it all.  I got to see Layton’s first step, that was cool; however, still not the crazy excited most parents get, even though I would have been upset if I missed it.  So at this point you’re probably thinking I’m a pretty emotionless dad (I was happy for all of these milestones, just not overly excited).  Wow, this guy doesn’t get excited for any big developmental things his child does.

Here’s my mindset on it, and you can disagree as we’re all entitled to our opinions.  As parents, as long as we’re doing our best to raise our children in a healthy, positive way, they are going to do all of those things, they need to in order to survive.  I feel pretty damn proud as a dad that I was able to encourage and support him to get to all those things, but eventually he would have needed to figure it all out.  I recently took the Real Colors personality assessment and “blue” was my lowest score so it explains my lack of emotion for this kind of stuff. (that’s how I’m justifying it in my mind)

So, all this stuff and I was only mildly excited about it.  You know what put me through the roof with excitement?  He sang his ABC’s and got past “Q” and made it to the end and sang “next time won’t you sing with me”.  Wow!  That was exciting!  Yes, I’m being serious.  In my mind it was a huge accomplishment.  Yes, I know he needs to learn his ABC’s and 123’s and be able to sing about it like the Jackson 5, but it was different in my mind than all the other big/bigger stuff.  He struggled to get past Q for so long (months that’s where he would end).  Finally, Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z!  Glorious!  And he kept singing it!  Yeah, I was that excited.  I was also really disappointed and sad that I didn’t see him catch his first fish, or his second fish, or any of the fish he’s caught yet.  One fish that wasn’t small either.  I wasn’t there for any of them, I was/am definitely sad about that.  If you didn’t know before, now you know I’m a little crazy.  Learned to walk?  Eh, that’s cool.  YOU CAN SAY YOUR ABC’S???? THAT IS AMAZING!!!  You smiled?  No big whoop.  You caught a fish and another fish and another fish?  BEST DAY EVER!!!

Here’s the deal.  Get excited about stuff your children do.  It doesn’t matter what it is get excited about it, about them.  Everything they do is new to them it should all be exciting.  As parents we may see it a little different.  Walking?  We do that everyday.  Walking to a 1 year old, that’s the most difficult thing in the world, be excited for them!  They caught a little bluegill?  Be excited!  I’ve gone fishing for entire weekends and caught nothing, who cares how big or what kind of fish, it’s a fish!  It’s all exciting and if we’re not excited about it for them they won’t be excited about it either.  So they climbed up the playset steps and slid down the slide, that’s the point, isn’t it?  To them that was the hardest thing they did that day, be excited about it.  It took the ABC’s for me to realize all this stuff is a big deal.

What was the most memorable milestone you have of your child?

“A B C, It’s easy as, 1 2 3, As simple as, do re mi, A B C, 1 2 3, Baby, you and me” Jackson 5.

New Favorite Song

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We were heading to dinner tonight and my new favorite song come on.  It’s a cover of a popular tune by an up-and-coming artist.  I would guess (hope) most if not all of you have heard it before and have sang it yourself.  If not I would think you’d find reading this post a little challenging.

The song, A-B-C…, by Layton Kaufman.  Not the A-B-C by Jackson 5, although I do enjoy that song.  Your traditional A-B-C’s.  Simple, right?  It absolutely made my night.  He’s been practicing for weeks just because he enjoys singing it and struggled to get past “P”.  Tonight was the breakthrough.  I heard him in the back seat of the truck so I turned the radio down and he was singing his A-B-C’s.  So I listened for him to get to “P” and start back at “A” as he’s always done.  Nope!  He flew right through “P” to “Q”, “R”, “S” (pronounced “X”, we’re working on it) right through “Z”!  I turned to my wife with a huge smile.  He continued to sing for the next 10 minutes until we got to the restaurant.  The radio didn’t need to come back on with sweet music like that.  I did join along for one round.  I felt bad that he was singing “now I know my ABC’s, next time won’t you sing with me” after each round and we weren’t joining in.  He started clapping for himself the more he sang it.  The ride to dinner was magical, musical, rather perfect.

We still have work to do on pronunciation and he gets excited during various parts, like “L-M-N-O-P”.  That’s pronounced “elmo p”.  Still, tonight was a breakthrough to get past “P”.  It’s the simple things in life that really bring the most joy.

I hope you now take a moment to refresh yourself on the A-B-C’s song.

A New Place to Cast

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I was perusing my Facebook feed earlier today and came across a blog post from a Facebook friend. He’s your typical Facebook friend, you meet them once, connect on Facebook, and that’s the extent of your friendship. Regardless, his blog post stuck with me. He’s a journalist by trade so maybe his way with words intrigued me, especially because I coble together posts like a writer would a balance sheet (I am an accountant, so numbers are more my thing). The title was Life Lessons from a Great Blue Heron. It drew me in; I’m an outdoorsman, this title spoke to me. The context fit quite well with some recent experiences, particularly the second lesson he brings up “don’t let past successes keep you from trying to learn.”

His post was about a fishing trip he had recently taken. I immediately applied his lesson to a fishing trip I had recently been on as well. I was on my annual bass fishing trip with a good friend of mine and we had fished “our spot” all weekend. We covered every inch of the specific structure we like to fish over the course of 8 hours on the lake (not consecutive, we took a couple brakes throughout the day). It has always produced a significant number of bass for us and always one or two big ones for that lake. By the end of the day Saturday we had landed 8 fish, 7 large mouth (one good sized one) and 1 northern. We were happy, not ecstatic, but pleased with the day. We hit the same spot early the next morning. Three hours produced two fish and they were early. We needed a change. We talked about it for a little while, contemplated where we’d seen other boats, fish jumping, eagles diving, anything to come up with a new place. We were really stuck in our heads that the structure we’ve always fished was the best place to be. We decided to take a slow pass over some places we’d seen fish jumping. They didn’t hold the structure we were hoping for so we kept looking. We settled on a nice drop off with a solid weed line in the shallows, a lot of weeds. Not the area we would normally fish, actually we’d never seen anyone fishing this area. Within an hour my friend had landed two bass, one of them the biggest of the weekend.

After realizing I’d lived his lesson before reading it, I began thinking of other recent experiences that fall within that realm. Not surprisingly they’re Layton related, two of them this week. We’ve been dealing with some separation anxiety issues with Layton around bedtime. This is a new thing, within the last few weeks. Normally bedtime is good, we have a solid routine, but he’s been waking up in the middle of the nights screaming for momma and daddy. It’s not night terrors, we’ve talked with the doctor and explained the circumstances. Separation anxiety is quite common for his age. This past Monday night I was tired of the middle of the night wake-up call so I decided to talk with him before bedtime; we would read books, I would lay him down in bed, and then I would go to bed in my room across the hall. This did not sit well with him and we ended up making a routine bedtime last 2 hours. Mental note, sometimes the path to success should be repeated, not changed. We’ll stick with the normal bedtime routine and I won’t have anymore talks with him about sleeping through the night; at least not at this point in his life.

Fast forward two nights to Wednesday night/Thursday morning and we’re up at 2 am again. When it comes to the middle of the night wake-up call I’m not a pleasant person, my wife is the consoler and I’m the “GET BACK IN YOUR BED, LAY DOWN, and GO TO SLEEP!” person. Neither of our efforts had been fruitful over the past week and we’d resorted to letting him cry himself back to sleep. Wednesday night, for whatever reason, I changed my tactic. Aggression was not the historical answer, but it’s what I knew; however, I became the consoler early Thursday morning. He was crying in his bed, I came in and sat on the floor and gave him a hug. I talked to him for about 15 minutes, then calmly, yet directly, explained what I was going to do. He nodded in understanding. I left his room and went back to bed. It took about 20 minutes but he was back asleep without any further tears or cries for momma and daddy. I can’t tell you this is going to work again for me with future encounters, but I was happy with the outcome and very glad I changed my approach.

Whether you’re fishing, stuck wondering what to do next in life, or trying to get your child to sleep, consider casting someplace new; you won’t know what the outcome will be if you stick to the same old structure.

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Transient Synovitis…

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Big words, that was my first thought.  Then I thought about what transient meant.  My limited knowledge of the word makes me think of a person down on their luck, Aladdin popped into my mind.  Transient also means temporary, short-term, brief, etc.  So you’re probably wondering why I’ve transitioned from fatherhood stories to dictionary.

This past Friday, July 27th, Layton woke up as usual around 4 am screaming for momma and daddy (usual for the past two weeks anyway, he’s normally an awesome sleeper).  He climbed out of bed and walked to the door and opened it.  I was at his room by this point.  He was consoled, we read a few books, he screamed every time we put him back into his bed, and he was finally back asleep 45 minutes later.

I woke him up for daycare around 7:30 and he was angelically pleasant, clearly he forgot about the 4 am wake up call.  I got him ready and asked him to stand up to pull his shorts up and his left leg immediately collapsed.  My initial reaction was to try again, so we did and he collapsed again.  He never cried, just said it hurt.  So I went through the process of feeling his leg asking him to tell me where it hurt, from the hip down to his toes, nothing.

(Sidebar: Externally, calm dad, let’s work through all the steps to rule things out.  Internally I was freaking out.  My child can’t stand up, his leg is collapsing under him, what if he never walks again, AHHHH, THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!)

Everything was fine.  So I wiggled his toes, moved his foot, bent his knee, nothing.  So I carried him to the kitchen and got some food for him.  Asked him to stand, he did for a short period holding onto something then his left leg gave out again.  Ok, something is clearly wrong here.  I called my wife, who was at work by this point, about a dozen times.  She gets us in at the doctor at 10 that morning, excellent.  He’s happily moving around his train table holding on using it as a stabilizer.  The kid is in great spirits given he can’t really walk.  He goes to what I’ll call his “pooping corner” and squats down without issue, sitting there not holding onto anything, then stands back up using the train table for assistance.  I’m baffled.  He was able to squat no problem, bent his knee, ankle, hip, filled his diaper, but can’t walk or stand up without assistance.  He’s sitting cross legged no issues.  I’m at a loss.  From everything I understand he should have been fine.  I started thinking about what he did the night before, did he get injured during his 4 am tantrum?  My mom watched him the evening before, did something happen there?  Nothing came to mind.

By the time we got to the doctor he’s able to limp a good 10 feet before going down, must be loosening up as the day goes on.  So the doctor does the full range of motion testing, nothing surprising there.  No wincing, crying, ouches, he’s fine.  But not really.  He still can’t walk.  Ask him to push his foot onto your hand, no big deal.  Then doc throws out the big words, “it’s likely Transient Synovitis”.  Huh?  It’s fairly common in children 3-8 years of age, particularly boys.  It’s the temporary inflammation of the hip joint or in some cases the knee.  The cause is unknown but usually follows a viral infection.  Layton hasn’t been sick (at least not that we’ve known of) for the entire summer.  So I’m still baffled.  Doc said he’s seen it last up to 6 weeks, but it usually clears up in 1-3 weeks.  Now, it’s 2 days later and we’re in pretty good shape.  Layton isn’t running yet but is walking close to without a limp.  Hopefully this progress continues and we have our independent, spirited little boy back in no time.

My initial feeling about this situation was to say suck it up and deal with it, the dad mentality you could say.  Several weeks ago we had a little incident in his inflatable pool where the dog bumped into Layton while Layton was climbing in and he rolled over his wrist.  He cried for a while, wouldn’t let anyone touch or move it; we thought it was broken.  So we got him out of his swimsuit, dried off, and into normal clothes and hopped in the truck.  The emergency room was the destination, but we ended up at my mom’s house.  On the way he started asking for the numerous rubber ducks that occupy a few cup holders in my truck.  As he’s accumulating them he transfers them to the “injured” hand/wrist.  The next thing you know he has full range of motion in his wrist like nothing was ever wrong.  We got to grandma’s and he goes right to the toy box and that was the end of the “injured” wrist.  So I was a bit jaded when the knee “injury” came up.  I’m glad I didn’t just push the issue and send him to daycare.  My gut said “call your wife and talk it through”.  In this situation, I’m glad I trusted my alimentary canal.

Toddler aka Jekyll & Hyde

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Now, I’m not inferring that my son is inherently good then transforms to evil and back again; but there are certainly moments that feel like it.

Today, all of it, was a prime example.  He woke up screaming for his momma.  I’m sorry son, momma is at work.  I leave his room and let him collect himself.  I come back and he calmly crawls out of bed, walks over to the rocking chair, looks up at me endearingly, and says “read book, please”.  I happily oblige.  The remainder of our morning together is rather uneventful and we arrive at daycare without incident.  Quite pleasant although it took longer than I had hoped to get him moving as I had an 8 am meeting that I ended up being late for.  Then when I was leaving daycare I see a girl offer him a stuffed animal, repeatedly, he clearly did not want the stuffed animal.  Rather than saying no and walking away he slaps it out of her hands.  Thankfully I was not in the classroom to react but on the other side of the window.  From what we were told he had a great day at daycare, go figure.

At home this evening he was in a very pleasant mood.  He went to the fridge and got leftover mac ‘n cheese out, sat at the table and happily ate/played with it, and then was finished with it.  Mom proceeded to clean up the remnants.  All that seems pretty harmless, innocent.  Then mom put a couple of pieces of mouthed macaroni in the garbage.  Whoa!  The world just ended.  Full on tantrum and attempted biting of mom’s leg.  That’s where it ended.  Mom laid down the law then.  It took some time and a timeout to explain, educate, and apologize; but, we ended that still going out to dinner.  He was a wonderful little boy the rest of the evening.  There was a lady at dinner that came and talked with us and told him he had nice hair, he replied “momma nice hair too! Daddy nice hair!”  Completely unprompted,  such a sweet boy.  It’s evenings like this that make you forget all the challenges he threw at us today.

After running around the house and doing sprints across the driveway, at his command, we ended the night with a popsicle.  I sat in the chair next to him at the table and could see the joy in his eyes, just staring off.  My heart and soul have never been happier.  Then, “daddy, bug on the window”.  Good night.

Biting the Ranch Fruit Cup

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Layton is just about two years and three months old. It’s a pretty exciting time in our household. He talks, runs, climbs, and is super adventurous. We try to give him every opportunity for a new experience we possibly can. Sometimes we structure the opportunity and sometimes he creates things on his own.

From the “structured” aspect we have tried to give him a lot of opportunities to explore around the water. We are water people, particularly me. My wife enjoys her time at the water but only when it’s warm (not frozen). He’s taken several sessions of swimming lessons and is very comfortable around water. Been fishing several times both on the ice and on the boat. He caught a 20″ northern with grandpa over the 4th of July, mostly him but obviously needing grandpa’s help. This spring/early summer I decided he was ready to hop in the tube behind the boat on his own. Mom was on board with this, others were shocked we would do such a thing. He was super excited to do it. We had his life jacket on and I was driving the boat on a slower weekend at the lake. My speed was also very slow, just enough to get him moving. He loved it, which is what we hoped for. Create a positive experience in a place we enjoy. Grandpa took me and Layton behind his boat tubing over the 4th of July, on separate tubes; he went a bit faster than I did, at Layton’s request. It was great until Layton started getting sprayed in the face with water from the rope. Overall a positive experience so we were both happy. When Layton was done on the tube he got to enjoy watching grandpa throw his son-in-law (me) off the tube. I think he enjoyed that more than riding in the tube, after he knew I was ok.

The other little “experience” he created was the ranch fruit cup. We went out to dinner and ordered Layton’s meal with a fresh fruit as the side. It was a couple varieties of melon and grapes, all of which he loves. His meal also came with ranch dipping sauce for his chicken. Unbeknownst to us, it was not for the chicken. It was for the fruit. I don’t mean a little dip of the fruit and a bite. It was a full on combination of both cups into one. All the fruit dumped into the ranch, then submerged. Watching him eat this was entertaining as well. Full palm grab of each fruit piece from the depths of the ranch cup, into his mouth. He devoured all the fruit. We’ll be recommending this as a standard side offering to the restaurant. The next night at home was raw carrots and ketchup. I give him props for creativity.

Lastly, we’ve had to start dealing with the biting phase of toddlerhood. It’s actually been ongoing for the last two months. Randomly at bedtime we will discover massive bite marks on Layton when changing him into his pajamas. Two have been on this upper arm near the shoulder, one on his elbow, and the other on his ankle. He attends daycare so you would think if a child is bitten they would inform the parents of both children. Apparently they didn’t find the need to inform either party for three of the four occurrences. We’ve had several discussions with them now that it is unacceptable for the lack of awareness on their teachers’ part. The child who was doing the biting has moved on from Layton’s classroom but not without confirming to Layton that biting is ok because there is no response to it. By that I mean Layton has now bitten another child. That happened just this week. Thankfully we were made aware of it when it happened and the circumstances around the offense which gives us the opportunity to educate him on proper behavior regarding sharing and what to do when frustrated. It also allowed the teachers in his classroom to help him learn. I understand that biting is a common outlet in the toddler stage, but being able to address is as important if not more important than simply understanding it is common in that stage. To those of you wondering why we’ve stuck with the daycare after three instances of not reporting a bite, it’s quite simple for us. Selfishly, it’s convenient for us. For Layton’s sake, he is comfortable there. He knows his teachers and enjoys them. He also enjoys the other children in his classroom, some he has been there with since he was 6 weeks old. Finally, Layton has a very challenging time being dropped off in the morning. We are finally at a point where he is ok with being dropped off in his classroom and knowing it’s ok to be there without mom or dad. It’s taken us almost two years of daycare to get to this point. It is better for us to work with the daycare than disrupt a good thing we’ve worked to get to. I don’t need to explain myself though, I’m his parent. The explanation might help others facing a similar situation though.

Until next time, enjoy the ranch fruit cup!