Crow Hassan Today

This morning we got up and went to Crow Hassan.  It's one of Aaron's favorite place in the whole world.  It's where we went on many dates.  It's where he proposed to me.  And today we had a great time as usual.

Finally, my favorite picture of the day.

Pool on the deck

We decided to put the pool on the deck today.  It was supposed to be about 80 degrees and we thought it would probably be the last time we could get the pool out for Esme.

Even though it was really warm out she got cold in the shade.  It was a long wait until the sun finally got to her.  She had blue lips!  By then she was a wrinkled prune and wanted to get out.

Until next summer!

Coming clean about discipline

Esme is growing up.  It almost hurts to type it.  This is a time where she should be pushing boundaries and developing her personality and determining how she's going to fit into and manipulate the world around her.  And she is doing just that!

Anyone who's ever been around any preschool children knows exactly what I'm talking about.  We tell her to sit down so we can put on her shoes and she runs and hides behind a chair and smiles at us.  We say "let's take a bath" and she screams that she doesn't want to take a bath.  We finally get her in the tub and then she cries when it's time to get out because she doesn't want to do that either, she wants to stay in the bath!  Every single time she washes her hands, she pulls the hand towel completely off the towel holder, wipes her hands and throws the towel on the floor.  Etc, etc...

As an aside, I read somewhere once that you should say yes to your kids as much as you can because you want it to mean something when you say no.  I think that is pretty close to our parenting philosophy whether we are doing it on purpose or not.  If Esme wants to go outside with a turtle neck on in July, I let her.  When she figures out later that she's hot, we change.  Same thing in the winter.  If she wants to go in the back yard without a coat on when it's 20 degrees out, we let her.  In 37 seconds, she realizes we're not so dumb and asks for her coat.  I'm not afraid of a messy house (those of you who have been in my house know this!), we play with things that are messy.  I let her put the flour in the measuring cup even if half of it ends up on the floor.  Floors can be cleaned.

Lately though, if she doesn't get her way, the normal whining leads to crying which leads to sobbing which ends in uglier and uglier behavior.

We've (I'm including Aaron on this) been struggling with how to handle this.  Time outs are definitely happening at our house.  There are threats of losing privileges or toys or staying home from events with friends and family.  But she continues to push and push.

This week we were invited to a birthday party for one of Esme's friends.  It was Esme's first "friend" birthday party.  She had a such great time!  She played and played with the kids.  They made little homemade pizzas, rolled out the dough, put toppings on.  So. Much. Fun.  She ate really well and was having a great time.  Until she had to use the bathroom.

We went into the bathroom and when it was time to wash her hands she wanted to grab the hand towel off the rack.  I knew the next thing she would do was throw it on the floor.  So I tried to stop her from pulling it down.  She said she couldn't reach it where it was.  I told her she could in fact reach it.  Soon she was a puddle, crying/sobbing that she couldn't reach it.  I don't know what made that moment "that moment", but I spanked her butt.  One solid spank.  Was she in danger?  No.  Was she throwing a tantrum?  No.  Was I feeling particularly short fused?  No, in fact I was not stressed at all.  Of course the next thing out of her mouth was "ouwee Mommy!" and much more crying.  I got her calmed down and she finally wiped her hands.  I hung the towel back up.  We walked out of the bathroom and the other moms were understandably looking at us me.  Was it because she was crying in the bathroom and they could hear?  Of course they could hear.  Did they know I spanked her?  They must have.  Did they disapprove?  Probably.  Had they been in my shoes?  Maybe.  In front of other moms?  Maybe, maybe not.

I was embarrassed.  Why hadn't I just let her wipe her hands and then put the towel back on the towel bar?  I wanted to go home immediately.  I told Esme it was time to go (which it really was).  I carried her to the entry way to put on her shoes.  She tucked her feet under her butt and there was no way she was going to let me put her shoes on.  In her defense, she's always done better with a 5 minute warning when we leave somewhere.  So I told her that we were going to leave in 5 minutes and that I didn't want to hear any arguments when that time came.  She went back and played and I helped clean up the kitchen.

When it was time to go she put on her shoes nicely and said "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girl and "Thank you" to the mom.  She was perfectly fine on the way home, talking about how fun the party was and how she liked playing with all the kids.  I cried the whole way home.  When we got home I cried some more.  I was surprised at how much it bothered me.  That night I went over and over what went wrong.

Even now, a few days later, I can't stop thinking about it.  I'm not sure why it is/was so upsetting to me.  I was spanked occasionally as a kid and I'm not a mass murderer or violent person.  Esme's had little swats here and there in the past, but not real spankings.  I'm sure other kids get spanked from time to time- maybe even some of the kids at the party.

I think it's because I don't want the other moms to think I'm a bad mom.  I'm embarrassed that I wasn't creative enough to come up with another option besides spanking.  When Esme starts getting too many time outs, I take it as a sign that I'm not doing a good enough job of redirecting her or explaining her boundaries.  What does it mean when I didn't even think to give her a time out and just went straight to a smack on the butt???  Especially when she wasn't being terrible, she was just being 3.  Am I a horrible mom?  I really don't think so.  Will Esme even remember it?  I'm sure she will for awhile.  But she's not treating me any differently.  She's not shying away from me.  Did the other moms talk about it after we left?  About how I spanked her for such a simple thing?  Will we be invited to another event?  Is it the end of the world if we're not?

I don't know the answers to all of the questions that keep running though my head.  But here is what I do know:

• I feel terrible for spanking her.  It will not be a part of my every day parenting technique.  I'm not of the mindset that ALL spankings are ALL bad.  I do think there are times and places for them.  But for now, they are off limits to me.  It did not help the situation and it probably made it worse.  
• I do know that I'm a good mom and that no one loves Esme more than I do.  
• I know that I will do my best to protect her from the world and make her happy. 
• I will continue to work on finding creative ways to steer her behavior.
• I also know that I'm not perfect.  I will probably make parenting or discipline mistakes again.  

That's all I know right now.  I hope it's enough...

Budgeting

I'm going to Starbucks less.  But if I put whip cream on my coffee and put it in Starbucks cups then it's sort of the same right???

And two is always better than one.  Again, right???

Amen, Amen!

Still loving swimming

Back in June for Esme's birthday, Grandma Gini gave her swimming lessons as a birthday present.  I think it's one of the best gifts that she could have gotten.

I am happy to let Esme partake in any activity that she wants and won't push her towards any that she's not interested in.  With the exception of swimming.  If she does or doesn't want to play piano, fine.  Soccer, t-ball, gymnastics?  Whatever you want, little girl!  But swimming is a must.  We live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes for peat's sake.  Someone, someday is going to invite her to their cabin or to go swimming or wherever.  Whether she's 5, 15, or 55; the girl needs to know how to swim - or at least how to not drown.  She may never be Dara Torres, but I'd prefer that she remain as far away from the bottom of the pool/lake as possible.

Thankfully, Esme loves going to swimming lessons and is getting better each week.  So maybe we do have a Dara in our future!!!

Sorry that some of these are blurry.  It's hard to get a picture on my iPhone when she's moving so quickly through the water.  Gold medal here we come!

By the way, today was also Mismatched Day at preschool.  Esme was by far the most mismatched girl there.  It was homecoming week in St. Michael and they listed the dress up days for preschool too.  I wasn't sure how much kids would do it.  We tried our best to make sure that she looked mismatched.  Easier said than done since most little girl outfits are rather mismatched anyway.  Anyhew...  Mamoo and Papa took her in today and they said that most other kids didn't do it, but some had mismatched socks.  No one was to the extreme of Esme.  But the teachers made a big deal of it and Esme was pretty proud of herself.  :)  You can't see it in this picture, but she has a pigtail on one side and a braid on the other.

And finally, Happy Fourth Anniversary to Aaron and me. :)  We will hopefully be able to go out this weekend to celebrate.

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Driveway Skirt

We needed a new step in front of our house.  One of the steps had sunk and last year at Halloween it was almost dangerous.  Kids kept tripping.

Luckily, we have an "in" in the concrete business.  And what started as a new step grew to a new step and a concrete driveway skirt.

 Esme got to help Uncle Ernie prepare.

 We had some extra concrete so the girls got to put their hand prints in a bit of it.

 And Aaron honed his creativity with a little help from Steve.  That's a cushion he's making.

Next year we will be doing a couple of things to the front of our house.  We will be finishing the rest of the driveway with concrete.  And we will be replacing the AW-FUL river rock on the front of our house with some stacked stone.  I'm so excited to see the finished product!

Basketball!

Here are a few pictures of Esme at Munchkin Sports Basketball.

Morning walk

This morning we went for a walk in our neighborhood.  It's really beautiful outside right now because of the fall colors.

 If you look closely, you can see Cricket in this picture too!

Someone is so proud of herself for being able to walk Cricket right now.  She's a big girl!!!

Folding Lessons

Esme has always loved to help with laundry.  She likes to help fill the washer and move stuff from the washer to the dryer or from the dryer to the laundry basket.  And she's also always loved to help fold clothes.  Except that she balls everything up and throws it on the pile of folded clothes and calls it good.

For whatever reason today she kind of got it.  She was so excited to fold her burpee in half and then in half again and put it on the pile with the other folded clothes.

Her attention span wasn't long enough to do all of them, but it's a start right??? :)

Munchkin Sports

There is a program through ECFE called Munchkin Sports that I love.  It is 3 classes for 45 minute minutes each.  The first one was t-ball.  I didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately.  But this week is soccer and I brought my camera.  Here is a video of Esme dribbling the ball.  She is clearly not related to me because she's pretty good at it!

I think it's funny that if you look in the background, you can see a kid doing walk overs.  If you listen to the mom yelling (not me BTW), her kid ends up crying because someone took the ball.  It's funny because you can hear her say something to the effect of that's how play!  There are a lot of kids just sitting around.

At one point, I think Esme would have dribbled all the way to Monticello.  She was going and going and going.  Finally, thank goodness, someone stopped her!

Next week is basketball.  I think she's going to really like it.

Accessories

Let's discuss.

If you're going to take your baby for a walk, you must have the proper accessories.  Minnie Mouse hat, Dora backpack, orange purse, brown and green outfit,  black and rainbow socks, and sparkly fast running shoes.

And it's ok to take a break half a block from home and rest on the grass.

Got it?  Good.

The last thing I saw

Here's the last thing that I saw before I left for work this morning.

Love it!

Not quite awake

I love this video of Esme.  We are on our way to my parents and she is really not awake, but she's eating her toast.  I mean REALLY eating it!

Don't worry.  I was paying more attention to the road then the video and that's why my shoulder is blocking a good portion of the video. :)

Mystery Solved

Well, it was time to harvest the mystery fruit.  And just as I was afraid of...

Yuck!  Cantaloupe.  Oh well, Aaron and Esme are happy as clams.  As for me, I'm just enjoying the never ending supply of tomatoes that continue to come out of the compost bin!

First Day of Preschool

I can't believe it's here, but Esme is starting school.  Her world is getting bigger and bigger every day.  For the most part I'm super excited for her, but a little part of me wants to throw up a lot.

We took some fun pictures before we got there.  I made a sign for her.  Favorite Colors are pink and purple.  Favorite Food is bananas.  Best Friend - she said her friend Annie who is her imaginary friend. I hadn't heard her talk about Annie in awhile, so that was a bit of a surprise.  And When I grow up I want to be - she said a Puppy.

She wanted to make a sign too of course!  I thought it was amazing!

And she's so very proud of her giraffe back pack.

Hi Silly Face!!!

Arriving at school.

Once we got in the building, promptly went and stood in the wrong line.  We were in line with the 4 year olds who had already done a year of preschool.  I didn't realize this, of course, and was freaking out because these kids seemed so big and sure of themselves.  I thought there would at least be a few who were timid and a little scared.  But not here!  They were playing with each other and jumping around like crazies!  Esme stood a little behind me, holding on to my leg a bit and I could feel my eyes start to burn and water.  It took everything I had not to cry.  I thought, they are going to eat her up!

Soon the door opened and the teacher welcomed the children in.  It wasn't Esme's teacher!  Thank goodness!  We went straight to the correct room and things were better.  Everyone was either a little shy and timid or just outgoing.  But no craziness!  Don't get me wrong, craziness is great and I'm sure there will be much more of it as the kids get to know each other, but for now (for me anyway) shy and timid is just fine.

As we filed in the room, Esme was excited to see her teachers and a few of the kids that she recognized from the open house.  I thought she might be nervous for me to leave, but she wasn't at all.  She gave me a quick hug and a kiss and was all about playing.

 Lots of sparkly, glittery play dough to start off the day!

Two and a half hours later, I went to pick her up and she was just fine.  She had so much fun!  I wanted to take a picture of her under the Welcome to Preschool sign.  This little boy, Noah, was so used to posing for pictures for his mom that he jumped right into our pictures!  I have about 4 with him before his mom realized and called him away.  Esme was kind of like - whatever...  But she didn't really know what to do.  I think it's adorable as heck and someday when they're friends in high school or get married or something, this will be a fun picture to look back on.  

So to recap.  Esme's cute as heck.  She had a great time and I didn't cry.  Should be a great school year!