Alligator, Chicken and Sprinkles??!!

Every day, new and newer things I'm discovering from my son. Time is so fast, and yet there's no significant changes happening to me but a lot of development I can see in my "ahoy' matee" Clarence (he loves pretending as pirate, Arrr!!). He'll turn 3 in April by the way. Sometimes, he'll just surprise us with his owned composed sentence that we don't know where it came from. Making full little sentences with a subject and predicate hehe.. plus some adjectives make him so adorable to be heard. I think becoming used from his baby talk and just few words when he was just a baby made us so amazed when we hear him talking like already a grown-up now. One time, he cautioned me by saying, "Quiet! no talking, mommy is sleeping"..I swallowed my tongue at that very moment hehe. And when we are playing paint in the computer, he'll changed the color followed by a reasoning, "this' much better daddy!". But one thing I definitely know, that he's Spanish counting of uno up to diez was Dora and Diego's liability. I thought, wow! He doesn't need me anymore to learn.. In fact, I don't want him to learn that way of counting before because I don't want him to be confused with the English counting..(he can count and recognize numbers individually up to 50 now) but who am I to judge him... hehe.. I think I underestimated him in that point somehow.. I learned that we should not think or say that our kids can't do or learn things, not unless we don't allow them to give it a try. Kids are so smart not to know what we already know, they just need a little explanation and trust from us. The funny part is when they juggle the words in some of their rhyming words hehe.. Like my son, when we went to the doctor's office which was located in 4th floor, we're playing outside the clinic while waiting for his mom's checkup... he grabbed my hand and pulled me while telling me he likes the alligator... I was so confused till we reached the ELEVATOR and pointing to the button while kept on saying.. come on daddy, alligator! alligator! hahaha... there are a couple of words more.. one is chicken whereas it should be kitchen.. "let's go to the chicken daddy, get milk!" another is sprinkles instead of splinters.. on the playground, he tends to take off his slippers and say, "daddy, Oh no! sprinkles on my socks".. He's adorably funny!!! Then I said to myself, well he still needs me and that is for sure! I wonder what surprises are in store for us for the next 12 months..


Clarence with his art works on the wall

Separate bedroom for toddler

Here in MD, they require 2 year-old toddler to have a separate bedroom, thus, when we looked for a new apartment we have no choice but to get 2 bedroom unit because of our toddler. As of the moment, there’s no available 2 bedroom in our apartment complex that’s why we’re still stuck in our very first lease (1 bedroom since when we applied for this before, my son was just 11 months old then) I remember the transitions that took place in times when we get Clarence his bed.. From crib, during his infant stage, to cradle, then toddler bed and now queen size bed.!! Could you imagine that? I’ll tell you later why. I’m 100% agree in the idea of separating the kids from the parents’ bedroom because it teaches child to be independent. Sooner or later, my son will need to be in the school class room all by himself with other kids and he needs to be brave in facing that challenge. Clarence became used in sleeping by my side since my wife is working at night. I thought, we’re just two in the house and we both don’t want to be alone during the whole night, that’s why I allowed that kind of sleeping routine. At first, it felt wonderful because it made the bond between us as parent to child really strong. He always looks for me and most of the time preferred to be with me than his mom. Then little by little, time after time, I observed the negative consequences it brings, not only to him but for us. He doesn’t want to be alone in a room, not a single second. He always asked either me or my wife just to be with him to whatever he wanted to do, to the littlest thing he can think of. When it’s my wife’s rest day, we can’t get to ourselves alone because my son always wanted to sleep in between us. In his playgroup activities at school, I noticed that he’s hesitant to mingle with other kids unless I held his hands. To this, we came up to a decision to give him a bedroom of his own. Before, his toddler bed was also in our bedroom but it became useless since he tend to transfer in our bed during sleep time.

Last Thursday, we did some home makeovers, we folded and hid his toddler bed and gave to him instead our queen size bed. Now my wife and I are using the sofa bed in the living room. We put all his toys, books and learning materials in his bedroom so he’ll somehow feel that he owns something and he can tell that it’s his place. His territory. The first night was extremely painful, emotional, heart-breaking, irritating and tiring. It took more than 4 hours of struggle, crying, pleading, bargaining, arguing (me and my wife), and a lot lot more. Clarence almost lost his voice in crying out loud, we didn’t mind if he’s disturbing Mr. Grumpy Old man upstairs because we are strict to our plan even if it did bring us a lot of pain. Well, we have to be consistent, our son’s welfare is at stake when we give up. I’m proud of my wife because whatever I say to her to break her up, she won’t listen and instead gave me a realization of what’s best for all of us. Our strategy was just to stay at the bedroom’s door to let Clarence know that we’re still there but not joining him in bed, since it's his first night. Explaining to him that we already have our own bed in the living room and the big bed is now his. Now is the third night, I can say that there’s a progress since he can now sleep without his body trying to touch and look for mine. I can now little by little, leave the bedroom's door. But it took me 3 hours tonight before he finally gave up. What did you know??, it’s 1:38 am now and he’s sound asleep, how about me? I can’t get my sleep back anymore that’s why I’m now blogging hehe.. One more thing, whenever he cries for my name, I never showed up because he's using his cry to get my attention and make me go back inside the bedroom and when he goes out the bed, I put him and tuck him back in his bed then gave a command to lie down, close his eyes and sleep.. I hope the following days will be a success for us… to make him independent and for us to get our love life back hehe…

Complaints or Appreciation

Are you the kind of person who always sees things in its worst form? Who are proud to tell to everyone how hard you’ve gone through just to get out in a situation? Some people complain about everything. Patterns like parent to child, employee to boss, student to instructor and vice versa are the common ones. They complain because there’s no contentment in their hearts. You can’t expect everything to happen in your own will and preference. This is why I hear many parents complain about how mischievous and terrible their children were. We cannot blame our children to be playful or naughty (at times) for it’s part of growing up. That’s what they supposed to behave. Instead of complaining, why don’t we be grateful that our kids are healthy that’s why they are lively and full of fun. If you are to choose, a sick child or a playful one? Why don’t you try to say “I’m so blessed for this stress because I know this is just a small cause of having a healthy kid”. And if someone asks you on how your day went, would you say that you had the worst boss and job in the whole world? Remember that there are people who are homeless, jobless, disabled and ill. Learn to be appreciative on what you have. Think of the good things behind every bad thing that happens in our lives. Life is beautiful if you'd only know how to look at it right.

Videos from Internet

Did you know that you can download videos from the internet? This is one way you can use to create another learning material for your kids. Be careful with the videos that you are downloading though, sometimes it contains bad images or wordings. I created a playlist of nursery rhymes and some of the episodes from a well-known children's show. This actually makes learning easier for my son. Alphabet song with colorful pictures and live children, Different kinds of animals with their natural sounds, Colors, Numbers and the likes. Kids can enjoy learning while having fun because of the cheerful songs that binds with the videos. You can save the playlist in your computer or burn it in a vcd. Whenever I need to do a household chore, I’ll open my playlist and let my son watch and learn from it. It’s like hitting two birds in one stone. I can work with my chore while my son is being entertained by the videos. Here’s one way how you can download video; you need to install “real player” in your computer and in its setup, you have to choose the option for downloading videos from the internet. Once you’re done, try going to a site where you like to get videos (sites that share videos and allow people to do downloads, please respect copyrights). On the upper right corner of the video, a “real download button” will appear asking you if you want to get a copy of the video. Clicking it will save a copy in the “real player downloads” folder and library of the real player. It’s up to you on how you will create your playlist. My son started singing the alphabet song at the age of 2 and I think the videos had something to do with it.

A day out with Hershey

Having fun with friends is one of the great ways to fight stress. It's important to give yourself some time to enjoy and relax, that's for me is healthy especially when you are dealing with your terrible two's. We visited "Hershey's Chocolate World" in Pennsylvania and found out that it's not just a place where you can buy cheap chocolates but is also an amusement park. Mr. Milton S. Hershey is such an inspiration, he is a real proof that anything is possible if you believe. He was like others who started from nothing who didn't stop believing and succeed. Clarence had so much fun in some of the kiddie rides. I enjoyed it since seeing my son happy is an ultimate reward for me plus the fact that I didn't experience those kinds of rides when I was a kid. I learned so much, not only of knowing how chocolates were made but also the idea of how can I instill to my son the inspiration behind the park.

Poop Goes to Potty!!!

(click pix to enlarge)

It was like my wife and I hit the jackpot when Clarence learns how to go to potty. He can now tell us when he needs to poop or pee (poo-poo/wee-wee in his words). We were afraid that we’ll not be able to teach him how to use the potty because most children in his age (he’s 2 yr / 5mo.) were already trained in using it. It also comes in our minds that this potty issue could be a big reason, for him not to be accepted in pre-school. This is why we decided to introduce to him the function of his potty. His potty chair was a birthday gift from our friends (Raffy and Karen). Honestly, when I saw it the first time, I can’t imagine that Clarence will be cooperative in using it. Well, I was right! At first, he used it like a chest for his small toys, a chair when he’s playing his piano, a platform to reach high places (like tables, TV, light switches, etc.), a drum when he got two pencils in his hands and a radio since it’s musical with a press of a button. We failed to make him realize the purpose of the chair, till we just think of buying a small toilet seat that can be attached to the actual toilet. That’s when we found out that his potty chair has already the part we needed. We didn’t know how functional his chair was until we saw the same chair in Wal-Mart showing in its box a boy sitting in a toilet with the seat detached from the potty chair and using the rest of the chair as a footrest. Thanks to Raffy and Karen, we saved a bunch of money from buying a seat. When we arrive at home, we immediately try the potty’s seat on the toilet and it fits. Now, the only thing that we are aiming to get is to make our son sit and stay on the toilet when he needs to go. We tried to demonstrate to him how to use the toilet; we used every chance in getting his attention to recognize the function of it. We used the help of internet, particularly YouTube because there are videos of kids using their potties. We are trying to make him realize that it’s a normal thing to do for kids like him. We even sing the potty song, like “Poop goes to potty!, Wee-wee goes to potty!” but it’s really hard to make him use it. Then we thought of taking his diaper off for a period of time. We started at the first day of October, we just let him run off the house with just his shirt, brief and shorts, not minding if he’ll pee on the carpet or couch. He did pee on our carpet and everytime he does, we’ll make him feel that it’s not appropriate, that it’s like a yucky thing. It’s funny when you can see him walk because of the wet pants, it’s like that there’s a big something between his legs, a very wide leg opening, a zumo wrestler walk I may say. It reaches 4 days before he can actually control his pee. We didn’t have problem with his poop because even if he has no diaper, I know the signs when he’s about to poop, and that’s when you can see me rushing to the toilet carrying him. Last October 5th, he can actually say when he wants to wee-wee or poo-poo. Whenever there’s a success in his toilet time, we are there praising him for a job well done. My wife sacrifices her sleeping time just to let my son know that his efforts are being appreciated. Now, when he says, “Daddy, wee-wee/poo-poo” and I don’t respond sooner, he’ll panic and say “Oh no! Oh no! wee-wee!!”. When he’s sitting on the potty and he sees that his wee-wee come out, he’ll tell to himself and us, “Good Job!” in baby talk. That was really a relief for us. Not to mention, the savings for not buying more diapers.