Lessons Not To Teach Your Child...

Yesterday Jeff was working on putting some new special child-safety plugs into the walls to replace the old crappy kind that a kid can electricute themselves on. He has this special little thing that tests to see if any electricity is flowing in the area so that we can make sure we turn off all the power before he starts sticking sharp metal objects anywhere near the wires. Anyways, Sydney had seen Jeff and I play with it and test things out and when there is electricity there, a light lights up and a beeping sound is made. A little later, Sydney decided that she wanted to try it out so I gave it to her to play with, not thinking she's actually do anything with it. But straight away she went over to the electrical outlet that I had been testing and put the little tester up to it and low and behold it made a noise and lit up. She was so excited. After letting her play with it for a few minutes I told her that she was done and it was time to put it away. She protested adamantly but I had said no, so no it was. That was until I figured it wasn't that big of a deal, so I told her that it was Daddy's tool, so she had to ask Daddy if she could play with it. This is when Jeff pointed out that I had just taught her a great lesson... if Mommy says no, go ask Daddy and he'll most likely say yes. Ya, I know, what great parenting. Crap. I was sitting there thinking, wow, I'm brilliant. Mom had told me a bunch of times that if there is one thing that you really need to make sure you do with kids it's to make your no's no's. It doesn't matter if they come up with a great reason or scream really loud, but when you say no, it sticks. So here I was thinking my no will mean no, but if she asks Jeff and he says yes, it's all okay, my no was still no. Ya, I'm pretty stupid sometimes, and I guess I learnt my lesson, don't teach your kids to ask the other parent when one says no, especially when they're going to say yes. It totally defeats everything you're striving for. So there's my parenting lesson for the day.

About a week ago it was my birthday, and because Jeff had to help with the Young Adults Fellowship on my birthday, we decided to celebrate it the following day. We didn't do anything really special, but it was just the two of us which we don't do nearly often enough. A wonderful family from the church took Sydney in for the evening and Jeff and I went off to dinner, followed by a walk on the beach and so shopping. I had forgotten what shopping was like without a little kid tagging along. We could actually look at stuff and not just run in and run out before she either destroyed the store or us. It was so nice. We went to a book store to pick up a book for the Young Adults Fellowship thing and ended up spending close to an hour just looking at all the different books. Man, I could spend so much money on books, it reminded me how much I need to hit the local library and pick up a few new books. I didn't buy any books for me (I'm too cheap to pay $15 or more for a book that I'll only read once) but Jeff got the book he needed and I bought 3 "Little Critters" books for Sydney. She absolutely loves reading, we'll spend at least half an hour every day reading and I'll often find her in her room looking at all her books with them piled all over the floor. We also went to Ross and T.J. Maxx and found Jeff a shirt and Sydney this super cool shopping cart that she just loves. It's great, she pulls it all over the house and has a ton of fun throwing the food in and out. Ya, more toys to clean up every night, but she has a good time with it and it was cheap, so I won't complain too much. But we had an awesome night and it reminded us that we really need to try to get out more, just the two of us, especially before the next baby comes and it's even harder to find people willing to take care of our kids for free.

As for the new baby, here it is, the weekly Baby Belly Update... enjoy. (You can also sorta see the new paint color we just got done in the background. We love it, but still need to paint the beautiful peach trim a bright white to finish it off)

Current Belly...



















Sydney Belly...