He's such a stinker but he's so darn cute. Juden has been testing me like crazy lately. He has spent quite a bit of time in the time out chair. The other day I heard him up when he was supposed to be napping and opened the door to find him glistening from head to toe. He had emptied an entire tub of vaseline on himself and parts of his room. Man, that stuff is hard to get off. I've been reading Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson and would welcome any other reccomendations on parenting toddlers.
Also, just wanted to thank everyone for your prayers and support for Josh lately. Our joys outweigh our trials and we are so thankful. Our prayer is that God would heal Josh but more importantly that our dependency and trust on Him would be deepened.
5 comments:
So happy for you! I love my boy, but it's so fun to have a girl. Juden will become 'the protector'!
As far as advice. I would have to go with counting to three and spanking. It's worked wonders. In this day and age it's hard to admit that you spank, but I do and it works. I only know what my healthy childhood experience taught me. I've actually found that time out in his room is more terrifying than spankings now. It's funny how the reversal has worked. Never been a fan of the time-out, it takes too long. Spanking is quick and over. I also have learned the super-nanny "low stern voice" is awesome. And clapping really loud to stop chaotic crying and fussing is great! It gets tension out of you, and your not yelling! It stuns and then you can use the Low voice.
Th Vaseline incident sounds like a scold and giggle. at least I laughed.
I wrote more than I thought I would, oops. Luv you guys!!
Wow, Vaseline... how in the world did you clean that up?
Someone in mom's bible study once shared that it helps to remember how we once related to our toddlers when they were babies. We smiled and cooed at them and praised them for every little accomplishment. With all the stress of discipline, though, these things become far outweighed by disappointment and anger on our face and constant reminders that they're not doing what they're supposed to do. This was, and still is a good reminder to me to smile at Dana and Jane and to let them know in the tone of my voice that I love them. It also helps to remind Juden constantly that you love him even when he disobeys, just like our Father loves us. Here lies my deepest struggle as a mother. I know I'll never measure up, but the comfort is in knowing that God is sanctifying me, just like he's sanctifying my family, every day from painful failure to painful failure.
We're thinking about you and praying for you.
Karen
< nerd alert >
With you having a girl, that makes the Riley girls exactly even in terms of gender birth order:
Heather: boy, girl, girl
Amy: boy, girl, girl
Linda: boy, girl, girl
Not only is that fairly remarkable, the mathematical chances of that happening are only 1 in 216! That's a less than half of 1% chance (0.00463 to be more precise).
Alright, sorry to get carried away with my left brain. But if the boys can pull off the same birth order, I might be tempted to do some more calculatin'.
< /nerd >
Hmm...thank you guys for those good thoughts. I do spank when the need arrises. A short time out and little talk and hug afterwards did seem to be pretty effective most of the time, though it is time consuming. It seems like as he's getting a little older we're entering this phase of him being extremely strong-willed. He's happy as long as he's doing exactly what he wants. Susan said Josh was the same way, big surprise. And go figure he listens to Josh much better than me. It is so nice to have support and input, I know I need all the prayer and grace I can get to do this mommy thing well. And as far as the vaseline incident, all I could do was laugh and start scrubbing everything including Juden with Dawn dish soap to break up the grease.
wow, i'm so excited for you all. you have such a beautiful family, how they've grown, i'm absolutely amazed. it was good to see you guys a couple of weekends ago. take care, god bless
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