It is definitely spring! I have of course been busy with projects and haven’t had as much time to blog, so I will give you a photo montage of some of our spring activities and fun happenings! I will try and post more details on some of the fun projects soon!

I had to get a picture of Quinn enjoying her beets! :-p She isn’t posing, I just caught her in this moment – silly beet-face girl! I remember taking a similar picture of Tyler when he was around a year eating beets, so I had to post them together…

Quinn….21 months

Tyler….14 months

We were over at my Mom’s the other day and Quinn wanted a container of beads. And of course, within a few moments, the beads got dumped. We all got on the floor to pick them up. Tyler sat down and grabbed one of the beading strings that was in the container and started putting beads on the string. I said, “Tyler can you make me a necklace?” He smiled and got to work. He was very proud of his work and handed it to me beaming with pride.

The next day I wore his necklace. As we were getting ready for our morning adventures he asked me, “Do you like your necklace, Mommy?” “I love it sweetie”, I replied. Tyler than says to me, “I put a lot of love into it Mommy.”

My sweet, sweet boy. Underneath that wild, crazy, gregarious exterior lies the sweetest child. It means so much to me in so many ways – his gesture of love, the experience of creating something beautiful all by himself and the pride he took in it, getting to enjoy the pleasure of giving a gift that came from the heart.

It was definitely a melt my heart moment..

Some more photos by Tyler – a self-portrait and a super close-up still life!

I posted about our commencing another potty learning attempt a while back.  I never updated the blog on what happened.  A day and a half later we were back in diapers.  It was instantly crystal clear to me that he was not ready.  Two things didn’t sit well with me:

1.)  Tyler never had that “oh crap” / panic moment when he was about to pee.  I think that is crucial and very indicative of potty readiness.  If he doesn’t recognize that need to pee / sensation of him about to pee, than there is nothing I can do.  I have seen so many friends of his potty learn and it is obvious when they have to pee – they do the dance, get ancy, and give many other indications.  Tyler would stop and pause, but he did then when he was peeing not before.  He DOES get that panic moment when he has to poo, so I know what that moment looks like for him.

2.)  My son is a smart, gregarious three year-old and to spend even a day and a half letting him pee himself seems to disrespectful to him.  I realized that I preferred to trust that when everything clicked, he would let me know.  All I was doing was getting in the way.  Going to the bathroom is like walking, crawling, talking – it is a natural developmental skill that he WILL develop.  He doesn’t like sitting in wet diapers.  He isn’t lazy and doesn’t prefer diapers, but he also doesn’t have all the awareness he needs to go without.  And I am fine with that.

Additionally, he wouldn’t want to go to the potty when I would remind him or ask him to go.  If he had no urge to pee and couldn’t recognize that urge anyway – asking him to go to the potty was senseless to him – he had to reason to go, so why go?

We did have a breakthrough the other day.  We were walking to the park and he said he needed to poo.  He looked uncomfortable and unsure.  But I ushered us back home anyway.  I was a little confused, because he was somewhat taking him time.  We got home, got him on the potty and all he did was pee.  I told Chris – he is starting to sense it, but is confused because it is different, but same sensation.  We are getting there.  And I get more and more excited about letting him come to all this on his own – I think he will feel so much more pride that HE figured it out.  And when we go to underwear next time he will have much more confidence because it is on his cue on not our  urging.

So there you go – the latest update on our potty learning journey!  :-p

I blew it today. I had a rich opportunity to demonstrate growth, but I failed. My mind was trying to guide me, but I just let my primal self flow with the adrenaline.

What Happened..

I made some poor choices today. The first one was believing that my 3 year-old wanted to stay home and chill this afternoon. No such thing and when you have TWO kids, well, the pot is easily stirred. Anyway, they ended up in the car playing. I decided to let them, but KNEW it was a bad idea. And as expected three CDs got shoved in the CD player. Usually they pop out, but this time..nope, they got stuck rendering the CD player useless. (A little aside, Tyler also broke the CD player in the Forester by putting coins in the slot.)

Now oddly enough, just this morning I was pondering an iPod for the car.

The Reaction

I went on a yelling tirade for quite a while. My head kept trying to chime in – “This isn’t that bad.”, “This isn’t useful.”, “Don’t say that.”, “You are shaming/berating him.” The voice in my head was pretty loud, but I just gave way to the emotion. The frustration was more about the fact that we have told him 500 times to not do what he did. The fact that he didn’t pause, that he didn’t stop to think, “this might be a bad idea.” I was also mad at myself for checking out. I really did set him up for that failure and I am pretty sure that Quinn started it and Tyler couldn’t help himself but to get involved.

The Realizations

• After calming down, the first thing that came to mind was Quinn breaking something of Tyler’s and him saying everything I told him word for word to her. Then I thought of him reacting that way to a friend, a spouse, his own child. I thought, “what am I modeling for him? Is this a healthy, constructive reaction? What good is going to come from that reaction?”
• Next I began thinking what is a “healthy reaction”? Do I even know how to react to my own anger in a healthy way? Do I model anything else beyond yelling and storming around and slamming doors and such? I mean Tyler was telling me in the car, “Take a deep breath Mama!!” So he at least knew I needed to calm down.
• I guess a healthy reaction would be one that followed Buddhist principles in that the angry emotion was recognized and validated but was not allowed to drive the reaction. Basically me using some self-control and maintaining some perspective.
• I have to carefully watch my reactions to Tyler’s mistakes and accidents. If I want to nurture a fear of failure in this kid, then I should continue viewing these things negatively as opposed to opportunities for growth and learning. I surely don’t want to be yelled at and berating for screwing up. The screwing up is bad enough. Growth is hard and one has to trip, fall and utterly fail to grow at all. Seeds get shoved way down in the dirt before they sprout roots, emerge from the ground and eventually blossom.
• I handled this incident poorly. I could have even laughed because the universe has clearly decided that I should have an iPod! :-p

In Closing

I have a son who so far seems to take a lot from his Mama..including my energy, impulsive tendencies and emotional waves. The one thing he has that I don’t have much of is testosterone. I fear that. That one day he will blow his lid and hurt someone. I know that feeling and have felt those urges. My adrenaline is strong and in the heat of the moment it takes all sides of my brain working together to keep those urges in my head and keep me from acting on them. It may be an irrational fear, but nevertheless, I feel a strong pull from the universe to get my anger sorted out so that I can provide a healthy model for him. This is another reason I want to put him in Tae Kwon Do at some point – great physical outlet and lots of discipline and self-control. Actually, I am thinking about doing this for the whole family – good for me too, Chris used to be a black belt ages ago, and Quinn could use the self-defense aspects.

Luckily Tyler is HALF on me, not all of me. His Daddy is in excellent control of his emotions and displays impressive amounts of objectivity and patience. There are weaknesses of each of my parents that I avoided due to the blend I inherited.

I think I am growing when it comes to my anger and that is important to me. To be in a place now where I am so self-aware, even in the moment, is huge. My consciousness is growing. And I don’t expect to never get angry – that is unrealistic. But perhaps 3 out of 5 times, I can react in a healthier way that is more useful and constructive for all involved and doesn’t leave me having to do a lot of emotional repair and cleanup after the storm has passed.

The big project that I undertook right after the Christmas holidays was making a doll for Quinn. I had found a kit at the Waldorf School store that utilized a knitted body.

Somehow this seemed much less intimidating then doing a fully formed body. Basically, the head would be the only form challenge – everything else would be stuffing knitting which I learned from the animals I knit a while back.

Halfway through knitting the body for Quinn’s, I decided I wanted to make one for Tyler too. That part was fun because I could ask Tyler was color he wanted and whether he wanted a boy or girl. The answers were “green” and “a boy – just like me”.

Since Tyler knew I was making him a doll, it was fun to share my progress with him. The reason the title to this post is “bulbheads” is that I showed Tyler the dolls when I had the head connected to the body (which had a torso and legs and the time, but no arms). Tyler said they looked like bulbheads.

And yes, the heads did look like lightbulbs. I was a bit dismayed thinking “Great, they will forever be known as “bulbheads.” But the next thing I knew, Quinn took the doll out of my arms saying, “baby” and gave it a hug. Nevermind – it was going to be fine.

I finished the dolls and they turned out better than expected. I did so many things that I had never done before: sewing the seams of a knitted fabric, forming a doll head, making doll clothes, sewing and inseam on pants, and sewing hair on a doll to name a few. Mistakes were made and all is not perfect with them, but I can tell you that I put a ton of love into these creations and I think that is what matters.

I am more than satisfied. I won’t say the dolls are a huge hit with the kids right now, but I expect that as their doll play grows as they age, the dolls will get played with more. And I do admit to getting a little grumpy if a doll is getting mistreated. “No Tyler, I don’t care if it is pretend play, we don’t throw the doll around!” :-p

Even if they end up sitting somewhere untouched – I still derived so much satisfaction from this project and am really glad I took a leap and tried something new. Not to mention that I completed this project which took 6 weeks and pretty much every spare minute I had.

I wish I had taken more pictures showing all the steps involved. It is really fascinating to see how they come together. And finally, here are the finished products!!