Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Parenting Tidbits: READ BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
Here are a bunch of random parenting tips I thought I'd share.
Tip #1: Sometimes, your kids will pick poisonous, hallucinogenic mushrooms from your garden and bring them to you. This is why you have the discussion about not putting random things in one's mouth AHEAD of time. This message brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood dad, and Emergency Room doctor.
Tip #2A: First, your daughter will just want to SIT on the Seadoo.
Tip#2B: Next, she'll want to sit on the Seadoo with Karlee, the babysitter.
Tip #2C: She will then summon up the courage to do a turtle-speed trip around the dock on the Seadoo.
...and of course...
Tip#2D: Eventually, she will want to do it all over again, her dad will get on the Seadoo and the thing will get off balance and roll even before the motor is started. Fionna, dad and Karlee will end up in the water, Karlee will rev the motor JUST before letting go but will have failed to attach the dead-man's switch to her lifejacket, and the Seadoo will take off riderless and thump into mom and dad's newly renovated shoreline.
[photo omitted for brevity]
Tip#3: If you allow your child to have favorite stuffie, FOR GOD SAKE, BUY TWO OF THEM! We did, and it allows for laundry of the stinky one, a backup in case one gets temporarily misplaced, etc. Sheryl originally poo-poo'd James' notion that we should be swapping them in and out frequently, but it turns out, that's the right tactic, as they then get "aged" at more or less the same rate. Fionna refers to her stuffie as "Bo" which may refer to his bowtie, may mean that he's her "beau", or may be a word-play on Bo-Peep. We think he may be a lamb, especially in the ears and face, but his paws are decidedly ursine...not like hooves at all. So the adults started referring to him as "Lamby-Bear". The one presently living on the shelf in the laundry room in a baggie is referred to as "Lamby-Spare".
We took great pains to avoid having Fionna see both of them at the same time, perhaps in order to avoid any kind of psychological scarring or to reduce the chance that we invoke some unforseen Lamby-Bear time paradox. It was all for naught though, as Fionna recently found both of them one day after Spare had been brought out to replace a missing Prime. (Prime was hiding in the library). In typical fashion, she then announced to us that Lamby-Bear had "a brother visiting".
All this to say that kids are adaptable. It's the parents that stress out.
Tip#4: Speaking of stress-outs...Abby sometimes has tantrums. They're not horrible - there's no blood and minimal tears, actually - but she sometimes needs to shut out the world for a bit. If you see us stepping over top of her roadblock, asking her if she's okay and then walking off...honestly, she just needs a moment.
Tip#5: Kids seem to eat better for their grandparents. It's partly, but not totally attributable to the anticipation of treat-food.
Tip#6: Play-Doh is cheap. Let them mix the colours, even though everything in your adult brain says, "NOOOOOO!"
But put down a plastic mat.
And finally,
Tip#6: How to wean your kid off a soother the "gentle" way.
It's almost become a household legend between James and his parents about how totally addicted to his soother James was. Apparently, he went through so many of them (and in that day, they were made of friable natural rubber rather than silicone) that the leftover "rings" had been made into a chain to hold the most recent one. Eventually, mom and dad decided that enough was enough, and somewhere around the time of James' 2nd birthday, they simply told him that his soother was old and dirty, and that it needed to be thrown out. Being the obedient kid, he wandered over to the kitchen garbage can and did just that, whereupon his parents dashed up, gathered up the trash bags and summarily dumped them into the apartment building's garbage chute.
We ended up in a similar position with Fionna. Total soother addict. Mind you, don't ever get near Abigail with one; she hated the things. But Fionna loved them and, to be honest, needed one for a long time. After a point, though, we had decided that it was finally starting to get in the way of conversations, so we figured out a plan. We don't have a garbage chute, and Fionna's personality is not exactly like James'. Therefore, with the help of friends and the internet, we concocted the "Soother Fairy". The plan was that we were going to prep her in advance, and then choose a time when th Fairy would come on night, magic away all her soothers and leave a suitable gift-in-kind. We even had a general date chosen.
...and then, Amanda came along. Her daughter Emily is about the same age as Fionna, was also a bit of a soother junkie, and Amanda was planning on using the same method as we were. One evening, however, they were over for dinner and Amanda goes and announces TO THE WHOLE TABLE that tonight is the night that the soother fairy is coming for Emily, and Oh-Fionna-won't-it-be-fun-to-compare-Soother-Fairy-presents-tomorrow?
Goof.
Fionna had NOT yet been prepared in advance for this, and put on a good face, but basically panicked. In the end, we had to defer things by one night, but then, as (sort-of) scheduled, the Soother Fairy came and metamorphosed her soothers...
...into something nice...
It's a butterfly hand puppet. I think we also stuffed it with some candy, as an extra bribe. Things worked out great for her in the end - a minimum of angst or fighting, and no drawn-out period of weaning or restrictions.
If you've been following the blog at all, you'll realize that the soothers disappeared from photos quite awhile ago. (scroll back and figure out when...). I had meant to post this sooner (as I've also had more than a few patients ask for strategies concerning this issue) but to be honest, I was always too scared to get the decommissioned soothers out out my closet to take a photo, lest Fionna catch me in the act. But today, all three women are having a simultaneous nap (Sheryl's on night shift in the ER) and I've had some time to blog on my own here. Now...to get these soothers into the trash...
Tip #1: Sometimes, your kids will pick poisonous, hallucinogenic mushrooms from your garden and bring them to you. This is why you have the discussion about not putting random things in one's mouth AHEAD of time. This message brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood dad, and Emergency Room doctor.
Tip #2A: First, your daughter will just want to SIT on the Seadoo.
Tip#2B: Next, she'll want to sit on the Seadoo with Karlee, the babysitter.
Tip #2C: She will then summon up the courage to do a turtle-speed trip around the dock on the Seadoo....and of course...
Tip#2D: Eventually, she will want to do it all over again, her dad will get on the Seadoo and the thing will get off balance and roll even before the motor is started. Fionna, dad and Karlee will end up in the water, Karlee will rev the motor JUST before letting go but will have failed to attach the dead-man's switch to her lifejacket, and the Seadoo will take off riderless and thump into mom and dad's newly renovated shoreline.
[photo omitted for brevity]
Tip#3: If you allow your child to have favorite stuffie, FOR GOD SAKE, BUY TWO OF THEM! We did, and it allows for laundry of the stinky one, a backup in case one gets temporarily misplaced, etc. Sheryl originally poo-poo'd James' notion that we should be swapping them in and out frequently, but it turns out, that's the right tactic, as they then get "aged" at more or less the same rate. Fionna refers to her stuffie as "Bo" which may refer to his bowtie, may mean that he's her "beau", or may be a word-play on Bo-Peep. We think he may be a lamb, especially in the ears and face, but his paws are decidedly ursine...not like hooves at all. So the adults started referring to him as "Lamby-Bear". The one presently living on the shelf in the laundry room in a baggie is referred to as "Lamby-Spare".We took great pains to avoid having Fionna see both of them at the same time, perhaps in order to avoid any kind of psychological scarring or to reduce the chance that we invoke some unforseen Lamby-Bear time paradox. It was all for naught though, as Fionna recently found both of them one day after Spare had been brought out to replace a missing Prime. (Prime was hiding in the library). In typical fashion, she then announced to us that Lamby-Bear had "a brother visiting".
All this to say that kids are adaptable. It's the parents that stress out.
Tip#4: Speaking of stress-outs...Abby sometimes has tantrums. They're not horrible - there's no blood and minimal tears, actually - but she sometimes needs to shut out the world for a bit. If you see us stepping over top of her roadblock, asking her if she's okay and then walking off...honestly, she just needs a moment.
Tip#5: Kids seem to eat better for their grandparents. It's partly, but not totally attributable to the anticipation of treat-food.
Tip#6: Play-Doh is cheap. Let them mix the colours, even though everything in your adult brain says, "NOOOOOO!"But put down a plastic mat.
And finally,
Tip#6: How to wean your kid off a soother the "gentle" way.
It's almost become a household legend between James and his parents about how totally addicted to his soother James was. Apparently, he went through so many of them (and in that day, they were made of friable natural rubber rather than silicone) that the leftover "rings" had been made into a chain to hold the most recent one. Eventually, mom and dad decided that enough was enough, and somewhere around the time of James' 2nd birthday, they simply told him that his soother was old and dirty, and that it needed to be thrown out. Being the obedient kid, he wandered over to the kitchen garbage can and did just that, whereupon his parents dashed up, gathered up the trash bags and summarily dumped them into the apartment building's garbage chute.
We ended up in a similar position with Fionna. Total soother addict. Mind you, don't ever get near Abigail with one; she hated the things. But Fionna loved them and, to be honest, needed one for a long time. After a point, though, we had decided that it was finally starting to get in the way of conversations, so we figured out a plan. We don't have a garbage chute, and Fionna's personality is not exactly like James'. Therefore, with the help of friends and the internet, we concocted the "Soother Fairy". The plan was that we were going to prep her in advance, and then choose a time when th Fairy would come on night, magic away all her soothers and leave a suitable gift-in-kind. We even had a general date chosen.
...and then, Amanda came along. Her daughter Emily is about the same age as Fionna, was also a bit of a soother junkie, and Amanda was planning on using the same method as we were. One evening, however, they were over for dinner and Amanda goes and announces TO THE WHOLE TABLE that tonight is the night that the soother fairy is coming for Emily, and Oh-Fionna-won't-it-be-fun-to-compare-Soother-Fairy-presents-tomorrow?
Goof.
Fionna had NOT yet been prepared in advance for this, and put on a good face, but basically panicked. In the end, we had to defer things by one night, but then, as (sort-of) scheduled, the Soother Fairy came and metamorphosed her soothers...
...into something nice...
It's a butterfly hand puppet. I think we also stuffed it with some candy, as an extra bribe. Things worked out great for her in the end - a minimum of angst or fighting, and no drawn-out period of weaning or restrictions.If you've been following the blog at all, you'll realize that the soothers disappeared from photos quite awhile ago. (scroll back and figure out when...). I had meant to post this sooner (as I've also had more than a few patients ask for strategies concerning this issue) but to be honest, I was always too scared to get the decommissioned soothers out out my closet to take a photo, lest Fionna catch me in the act. But today, all three women are having a simultaneous nap (Sheryl's on night shift in the ER) and I've had some time to blog on my own here. Now...to get these soothers into the trash...
// posted by Unknown @ 12:28 PM 
