Tag: Wife

Christmas Season with a 3 Year Old

Posted on by Pints with Pops
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!

The Blueberry Discussion

Posted on by Pints with Pops

Have you ever tried to have a discussion with a toddler? It goes absolutely nowhere but in circles. These discussions aren’t generally deep, not like a disciplinary discussion. My most favorite recent one was this past week. We were outside looking at our blueberry plants. We have one in a pot that is doing great and two in the ground that I clearly should have put fencing around as the rabbits have chewed them down to the ground. Layton asked where the blueberries were on the two in the ground and I told him the rabbits ate them. He proceeded to tell me he wanted to eat the blueberries. I told him we wouldn’t have blueberries on those this year because the rabbits ate them. He queried me on why. I explained that the rabbits were hungry. I then said we should get rid of the rabbits so the blueberries could grow and he could eat them. I was expecting him to agree with me. I got the opposite. Not only did he want the rabbits to stay, he was angry that I would want them gone. I said “Layton, if the rabbits stay, you won’t get any blueberries”. He then yelled back at me from across the yard, he ran away because he was angry, “NO, I SHARE WITH THE RABBITS!” Trying not to laugh I told him if he shared there wouldn’t be any blueberries because the rabbits would eat them all and the bushes. This back and forth went on for several minutes until I couldn’t contain my laughter and just gave up on the conversation. I’ll get some fencing up after we get new bushes planted. I also need to get the bird netting up before the bush in the planter starts producing otherwise we’ll be sharing with the birds as well. What I know about me and quickly realized about him is that we’re right until proven wrong. My wife and friends would all support that statement. I haven’t been able to prove him wrong yet and he’s still too young to get it. Either way it made for a very entertaining discussion with him. That’s just one, we’ve had many like that and they usually end in me laughing. I am happy though that he’s aware of what he’s talking about and how he feels about it. I definitely encourage the discussions because I want him to share his opinion with me even if he doesn’t realize the extent of what he’s talking about.

Fire Truck Shirts

Posted on by Pints with Pops

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.

Rough Weekend

Posted on by Pints with Pops

I’ve written a couple times to my Pints with Pops email group about the “terrible two’s”.  My mindset on the idea of the terrible two’s is they are as much on the parent to make positive as it is on the toddler making them terrible.  Two year olds are trying to become independent which makes parents uncomfortable.  We then try to stifle their independence because we have different objectives for our day.  We prefer to make the pancakes without their help because they will be done more efficiently and without a mess.  We pour the milk so it doesn’t get spilt.  We have them ride in the cart at the grocery store instead of pushing their own miniature cart so they don’t run into people/things and don’t try to purchase unnecessary items.  My wife and I are very supportive of letting our two year old have his independence.  This does not mean we let him do whatever he wants.  There have to be boundaries.

This past weekend he really pushed us to the limits as parents.  There was a lot of yelling from both sides and a few timeouts, for both sides.  As I reflect on this weekend and what caused all the consternation it wasn’t for a lack of our letting him be independent.  All of the situations we got upset with were him pushing boundaries that need to be respected.  Simple things like changing a dirty diaper morphed into needing restraining straps (we don’t have those, but wow they would have been helpful).  Sitting in his car seat was no longer something he felt was necessary.  Instead of allowing himself to be buckled in he needed to climb all over the backseat and jump on the groceries.  Jumping in the bathtub, not ok.  These were just the big things.  There was a lot of simply not listening when asked to do something.  On top of that he would hit and spit when upset in addition to crying so we had that to talk through with him as well.  All of these things are designed to keep him healthy and safe.  Those are boundaries I do not allow to be pushed.

I would say the past week he’s been sporadic with his listening and the weekend was a culmination of a lot of so-so days all piled up for a fantastic display of emotions.

I like Monday’s.  I look forward to them.  If you had a bad week Monday is the new beginning, the week is still full of potential.  I am hopeful our rough week/weekend is past us and we can look forward to getting back into the weekly routine and making more fun memories with him.  We’re all allowed bad days and sometimes you need a few all in a row.  He is a fantastic kid so it’s not surprising the rough patch all piled up into a few days.  As a parent, we’re allowed bad days as well; just remember how you handle it impacts your child.  I needed to apologize to Layton for yelling at him just as he needed to apologize to mom for hitting her and not listening when we asked him to stop jumping in the bathtub.  It was definitely not a perfect parenting weekend, it rarely is, but hopefully we got some of the negative emotions out and can have a great week.

Here’s to a new week!

3rd Grade, so what?

Posted on by Pints with Pops

When my wife and I found out we were going to be parents the first thing we bought was a B.O.B. running stroller.  We’re both runners and wanted the best equipment to run with our child in.  Then we purchased all the large furniture items for the new baby’s room and any other very specific items we wanted.  Everything else went on the baby registry for the baby shower.  Do you know what we didn’t purchase any of before the baby was born?  Books.  Thankfully, my wife is awesome and understands the importance of reading early in a child’s life and asked that everyone attending the baby shower bring their favorite children’s book for the new baby.  Now I knew why we didn’t buy any books.  The baby wasn’t born yet, so why did we need all those books so soon?  It turns out reading to your child in the womb is beneficial to their development.  I guess I’m a bit uneducated when it comes to a child’s brain development.  Again, I’m glad my wife has this knowledge.  So, for a month (maybe longer) before the baby was born I read a book or two to him every night.  He actually heard me reading!  My wife shared that he would kick and move in various ways when I read books to him.  How amazing is that?!  After Layton was born we have continued to place an emphasis on reading.  We read many times a day with him and have a great bedtime routine with some specific books for him.

This is not funny or encouraged, just interesting, but when he’s been naughty and gets a timeout, he’ll occasionally pull/throw all his books off the shelves; however, after they’re all off and he’s calmed down for a few seconds he’ll pick up a book and start paging through it.  Not the intention of a timeout, but I’ll take it.  (we could discuss the appropriate location for a timeout until we’re blue in the face, so I won’t go there)

Now you’re probably thinking “good for you, you read to your child, who cares”.

Who cares?  Everyone in our community should care.  Everyone who is going to rely on his generation to be the next leaders should care.  I was at the United Way of the Fox Cities’ community campaign kickoff today.  They shared that over half of the third graders in our community aren’t reading at grade level.  That’s a problem.  A couple years back when I asked why my wife was asking for books at the baby shower, she explained the importance of reading to our child as early as possible and continuing to do so throughout his life.  One prominent educational transition she pointed out was that third grade is when students transition from learning to read to reading to learn.  Simply put, if my child isn’t reading at the third grade level in third grade he is behind the 8-ball for the remainder of his educational years with very little opportunity to catch up.  How can he learn whatever the curriculum is if he is still learning how to read it?

If you have young children I encourage you to read to them as often as you can.  If you have older children encourage them to read to others.  Consider giving a book to the neighbor kid that might not have access to books.  If you have grandchildren, nieces, nephews, whoever, encourage them to read or their parents to read to them.  Support early childhood literacy in your communities, it’s one of the greatest things we can do for our children and our future.  This might sound a little preachy and I’m not educated in the science behind why reading is important for a child’s development so I’m not officially qualified to talk about it; but, I can tell you that I already see that my son is benefiting from all the reading we have done with him in his two and a half years of life.

One other great benefit that I get from reading with him is the time I get to spend with him.  It’s just another opportunity for me to be with him.  And, I get to read a lot of fun books that it might be strange to see an adult reading without a child present in their life.  I would probably do a double take if I saw a middle-aged guy reading the Belly Button Book alone in a coffee shop.

New Favorite Song

Posted on by Pints with Pops

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

Posted on by Pints with Pops

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…

Posted on by Pints with Pops

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

Posted on by Pints with Pops

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!