I love weekends when there are minimal tantrums and good weather. Those are rare, but worth every minute when they happen. This weekend was such a weekend.
We’ve been working on CootieGirl’s whining. It’s really annoying, and so we threatened her with the one thing she’d hate: losing computer time. We told her that whenever she whines she’ll lose a minute on the computer (she gets 30 minutes a day). This weekend she only lost three minutes, and they were all taken away last night when she didn’t want to go to bed. We’ve been trying to teach her to ask nicely for things, and she did exactly that. In fact, on Saturday night as she was reading a story with Denis before going to sleep, I went into her room and gave her a big hug and kiss and told her how proud I was that she did so well throughout the day.
CootieBoy still has his tantrums, but this weekend he was in a great mood. We kept the kids super-busy so he never had time to get bored. On Saturday we hopped in the car and went to a local horse farm for an Easter Egg hunt and pony rides. He had a blast and was well-behaved the entire time. On many occasions over the weekend I’d look at Denis and say, “The kid is AWESOME when he’s in a good mood!” He went to bed well at night, and we’ve realized that if we put him to bed at 9 p.m. he doesn’t fight and scream, whereas if we try to go for the original 8 p.m. bedtime he rails against it and screams and fights for a good 30 minutes.
The weather was lovely this weekend – blue sky, mid-50s. Upon arriving home from church (and the park) yesterday we had a private Easter Egg hunt in the backyard (the Easter Bunny had hidden about 26 eggs in the yard the night before). After a quick lunch we spent a good portion of the afternoon out in the backyard. The kids alternated between playing in the sandbox and drawing with their new chalk on the patio. Denis and I took the opportunity to rake up a few leaves that never got picked up in the winter. Then I took the kids for a quick walk around the neighborhood before coming home for some quiet time.
Today the kids’ daycare is closed, so Denis is taking them to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. I’m here at work wondering WHY I didn’t take the day off.
My boys both had serious mood swings until I started exploring food issues. They were like different children when I took them off dairy. Just a thought. 🙂
My kids would freak if they couldn’t have their milk. They go through a couple gallons a week.
You know, kbf may be on to something. He did have that bad reaction to normal formula, so maybe he does have an issue with dairy. If you switch him to another kind of milk now when he’s only 2 you won’t have as many problems about it later.
It sounds crazy, but I’ve heard it said that people often crave the thing they aren’t tolerating well. I know my Jesse couldn’t get enough cheese. It’s a big adjustment (and it could be something besides dairy) but if that’s it, it’s so worth it to find out.
Vanilla soy milk tastes like a milkshake.:) (Although one of mine seems to have trouble with soy, too.)
Yeah, but soy is so freakin’ expensive compared to the double gallon of 2% we can get at Costco!!!
It is. Walmart has it (and rice milk) in half gallons for way less than anywhere else I’ve seen.
Soy milk doesn’t seem to be working, what does everybody think about Ritalin? This was one of the worst tantrums I’ve seen. “I want milk. I don’t want milk. I want mommy. I don’t want mommy. I want my shoes. I don’t want my shoes.” When CootieBoy says he doesn’t want his shoes on, I know we have a problem. He has a shoe fetish. Hope we don’t get too many “ouch reports”. Every time he bites or stamps on a child, we get an ouch report. Most of the time you get those when your kid had an accident, but we only get them when CootieBoy causes pain. LOL
Again, we’ve only been giving him soy for about a week. Let’s try it for one more full week and see what happens. If we don’t notice a change of any kind, we can switch back.