Barbershop and my baby!

If you know me then you know that Barbershop music holds a place in my heart like nothing else.  I have spent years singing with the Sweet Adelines, and it is what I miss the very most right now in my life.  I can't tell you how much it warms my heart to see the reaction that Erik has to Barbershop music.
There is a children's show called Jack's Big Music Show that Erik adores, I love their mission statement (did you know children's shows have mission statements?), which is one of two reasons I allow him to watch it.  The mission of Jack’s Big Music Show is to expose and foster an appreciation of music. Music and musical instruments help children expand their universe and develop memory, language, literacy, and reasoning skills as well as the cognitive, social, and motor skills that are needed to excel in school......and it really does do all those things!
The second reason is the Schwartzman Quartet which appears in almost every episode and sings a barbershop song.  Erik lives for this quartet....today he started singing along! (Well, he tried to sing the "bum bums") but this child is riveted by this quartet!
  I grabbed the video recorder and caught some of it.  Oh please let this child continue his love for those beautiful barbershop harmonies and god bless Jack and his music show for exposing young children to barbershop music! 

BOO!!

You would never know that this is now a full fledged card carrying, temper tantrum throwing member of toddlerhood.  Five minutes before this he had the biggest fit I've seen him throw yet, because I wouldn't stop eating my dinner and read him Brown Bear.  He had to wait a whole five minutes and it was really really devastating!
He recovered very quickly.

Derby Divas

My work holiday party was last night.  I know, it's not the holidays - but we get a better turn out in January, people have less to do....and it works out really well in late January.  It was a 70's theme and my team of 5 teachers and I works for a LONG time to come up with awesome costumes that would work great on all our variety of body shapes. 
We were Roller Derby Divas! And we rocked the house with our bad ass selves!

Ugly...but oh so fun!

Erik received several magnet things for Christmas which have been taking over my refrigerator for too many days.  I wanted him to be able to play with them, but he wants to play with them all the time....and I don't want to be in the kitchen all the time, with him not allowing me to open the fridge.
I tried a cookie sheet....but it just wasn't big enough, so I went to Kragen and got one of those big trays you put under the car.  Then a lovely man behind me in line (after hearing my plans for it) nicely put holes in each corner for me in the parking lot.  Lucky!

I attached it to the wall and VOILA! Instant magnet space, without taking over my fridge....it is however, now in my living room, very very ugly...but Erik really likes it.

Sleeping Secrets

I've had several people ask what I did to get Erik to go to bed on his own.  Here's my routine.

After working in child care for the last 20 years the thing I have listened to parents complain about over and over again was getting their child to sleep in their own beds.  I can't tell you how many parents have come to me complaining that their child will not go to  sleep without them in the bed, or sleeping with the parents.The parents were tired when they began it as infants, and years later when they still have 5 year olds in their beds it's a hard habit to break. I took LOTS of mental notes through those years and swore to myself that I would never sleep with my child.

Wow...that is such an easy thing to do (co-sleeping) And it works for many families and many parents - but what I've learned the most after being a parent is you just gotta do what's right for you and your family and who cares what anyone else thinks of what your doing.  Co-sleeping does not work for me....and I don't want to have to teach a 5 year old how to soothe themselves into sleeping without me there. So, I chose to do it now

I tried to sleep with Erik a couple times when he was sick because I just wanted him to go to sleep, so I could too.  It was a miserable night of baby feet kicking me.  Never again...those feet grow!

Here's our formula, and so far so good.  We keep the same routine and the same bedtime every night - even if his nap was longer or shorter than usual - still the same 8:00pm bed time.

1) We get PJ's on after dinner if we don't take a bath.  I'm one of those Mom's who doesn't give her kid a bath every day.  It's one less chore I don't need in the evenings and right now he's inside all day so he's not dirty, I'm sure summer will bring more baths.
2) Playtime until 7:30
3) A bottle a 7:30
4) "Snuggle Time!" This is what we call it, Mike and I do that together (I love that he does this with us).  We say goodnight to all the photo's on the wall (that's Erik's thing) we "throw" him in the middle of the bed and yell SNUGGLE TIME! and then give him tons of kisses and tickles.  We lay him in between us and talk about what happened during the day (we went on a walk, what he ate for dinner etc) then we sing about 10 songs and read 2-4 books.  We end with the same two songs (You are my Sunshine, SING!) each night so he knows that's the end of snuggle time.  We give kisses, say I love you's and walk away.

The first few times was ROUGH - I started this routine when I had several nights home in a row so we could be consistent.  He loved it all at first, except the walking away part.  He screamed and I would say "I'll be back in to check on you in 5/10 minutes", and I would go in and let him know we were still there but it was time to go to bed.  Every night he cried less.  Now he happily gives kisses and puts himself to sleep.  It has all translated to his naps as well. 

I think every child is different, and every family is different - so parents need to be flexible and do what works for them.  This works for us....maybe pieces of it, or the whole thing will work for you!
Sweet Dreams!

Walking

This year it's my goal to move my body more.  Not just from the car to my house, but actually something that resembles exercise.  I've been coming home from work each day and taking Erik for a walk. We take different routes, he yells at birds and airplanes and I get a bit of a work out.  He asks for a walk every day, this is good, it ,must be why some people have dogs.  It's FORCING me to exercise, because the second I walk in the door he says "Walk Mama!"
Yesterday I had the grand plan to walk to Safeway (about a mile a way), grab a couple things and walk back.  All was fine until we got into Safeway where Erik proceeded to yell "Shit" Shit" Shit" - or whatever that word is that he says over and over and very loudly!  I hit the spice aisle and because he was in the stroller I got him too close to things and he took out an entire shelf of spices with one swipe of his foot.  Is it wrong that I was a little bit happy that it was raining at our walk time today?

17 months and counting!

Happy New Year!!  Erik is 17 months old today, as usual it is unbelievable to me.  Sigh. I'm trying to savor every second, because honestly I don't believe that I will have any more children.  I'm not closing the door to another child, I just don't think it will be a biological one so I am trying to remember every piece of this little guy.

He's happy, silly, smiley and quirky all at the same time.  He loves Choo Choo trains, his pink blanket, corn dogs and the letter "S".  He's really into letters and numbers (thank you Sesame Street), so into them that he randomly yells them.  His favorite number is six, however when he says it, it sounds more like Shisx..which just ends up sounding like Shit. If we're lucky he alternates it with his other favorite number, 10! Shit, 10, Shit, 10, and you get the picture.  He loves to say it loudly, over and over in public places. I have to at least be grateful that it's not like my little brother who used to replace his T's with F's and really loved trucks!  Mom couldn't take him anywhere, there are trucks everywhere...and little boys with very loud voices. (Sorry Frank!)

Like I said earlier he's so into letters and numbers that it's all he talks about...he insists that his name is "S!"...yes, the letter S.  Here's a little video of him saying it.  If you can get through the shaky beginning.

If any of you find a potion that keeps children from growing up, please let me know.