Child Inspired

Effective Discipline

2009-01-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

At least... what has worked for us.

Disciplining a child can be so hard, tiring, frustrating, and confusing. When do you use what type of discipline? What should you let slide? When do you raise your voice? How do you stop from laughing when your child has done something both wrong and totally humorous? :) I should start by saying that we are a no-spanking household. I have also read almost no books on the subject. The only book that I have read that even touched on discipline, but not really, is Raising You Spirited Child. I didn't even read all of that one, just touched on some of the topics I was interested in.

The number one mistake that I have seen other parents make with toddlers is that they overuse discipline. Especially time out. The reason that it is over used can boil down to one thing. Make sure you REALLY have their attention before making your demand and consequences clear. Many times they are watching TV, playing with a toy, or focused on something in the distance and we yell and assume since our voices are loud that they must hear us, understand, and choose to disobey. That is where we go wrong. Like a man watching a baseball or football game or when we are intently trying to solve a sudoku puzzle or crossword puzzle, we don't always hear anything else that is going on around us no matter how loud. Especially if we are yelling because we are in an already loud space so our yell is just more white noise. The thing I found that has been most effective to avoid having to discipline at all is that I ALWAYS make sure that Ari hears and understands what I am telling her before I issue punishment. I will literally get down on my knees at her level, grab her chin and turn her face to mine or pause her show or turn off her computer monitor if I need to to get her attention, then, once I see her looking at me and focusing on my face, I state what she is doing wrong and what the concequence will be if she does not do what I ask. This is KEY! Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, once Ari understands what is being asked of her and what will happen if she doesn't comply, she will comply.

Now the other side of that coin. Why does she comply? Because when she doesn't I ALWAYS follow through. ALWAYS! Do not say anything absolute, as a parent, unless you mean it. Sometimes I have to say, "You are not doing anything else until you get dressed." I used to say something like, "You won't do anything else until you put this on." That, I have learned, was a mistake. The reason being that the first statement gets me what I want (her dressed) but allows me to teach her about compromise and hope that if she gets some compromise, she will give in sooner. "If you don't want to wear what I am holding then choose something else, but as I said, you will not do anything else until you are dressed." The second statement locks me into an outfit and when she tries to compromise with me, "but I don't want to wear that one, I want to wear the other one", I can't give in, because I've already locked into this clothing. By always sticking to exactly what I say, I have taught her that when Mommy uses that type of tone and statement, there will be nothing else that happens until my demands are met. I never back down. If I feel I was wrong or too harsh, I find ways to stay within whatever it is that I stated as law and alter it minutely to make it make more sense or be more flexible. What I don't do is back down. This applies to more than just disipline, I also don't promise anything I can't deliver and always deliver what I promised. If we promised her a lolipop after she ate her dinner but we all forgot about it, after breakfast the next day, I make sure to give her one whether she remembers to ask for it or not. I will, as I give it to her, tell her how I promised and we all forgot about it the night before, but I remembered today and since I promised, here it is. She has learned to trust my statements to be true. True when I require something from her and true when I promise her something.

Never backing down from a stated demand sounds totalitarian, doesn't it? Hehe... This is where giving them a lot of times to be the boss helps. If you are always telling them what to do, they either lose there own free will to yours or make life miserable as you are constantly fighting. Make sure to give them LOTS of options, choices, and times of control throughout the day. That way, when you are pulling out the "I'M BOSS" card, it isn't so bad. During those times I have to be stearn, I also make sure to point out the other times to her so she learns there is balance. I will tell her, "Mommy always lets you choose the music we listen to in the car, and you got to choose your clothes earlier, and you even chose to watch a show instead of play a puzzle while we were playing."

Another example of time outs being over used is when there are other more related types of discipline available as an option. If they are playing with something in an inappropriate way, the discipline method that will make the most sense isn't to be put in a corner for a few minutes, but instead to be told, "you play with it like that again, and mommy will take it away." Taking whatever it is away is very direct and very simple so they can understand it very easily. Another direct discipline is to not allow anything except what you need to get done, to be done. When Ari was younger and we played with something like legos and I wanted her to clean them up, if she said, "NO!" then she was to sit right in the middle of the legos playing with nothing else until they were picked up. I always tell her I am happy to help, but since she made the mess, she needs to clean it up. She eventually gets bored and cleans up. If she got something else in her hand to play with, I would take it and put it in the closet. She didn't like losing her toys to the closet, so she eventually would stop grabbing at other toys. Time out should really be saved for those times when there is no direct consequence. An example would be behavior problems like hitting, not listening when there is no object involved, etc. Also, I should mention that when I give her a "you'll sit here until x," there is no time limit to sitting there. There is just do as I ask or don't. Time out needs a time limit by age because it is supposed to be "punishment" there is a difference between "punishment" and expecting a child to do as you ask. With one they are getting into trouble, with the other they are just expected to behave in a certain way. They WILL see it differently and the less you have to "punish" them, the better.

When you start with all this, there will be marathon 45 min - 1hr tantrums, but eventually, if you always stick to your statments but show them they have their own choices and opinions and that you are willing to be reasonable and compromise, they do learn to be more flexible and to believe you mean what you say so they may as well do it and move on faster. :)

I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but if anyone wants to know more or has any questions, feel free to ask me. This is just me trying to be helpful after all. :)

20 Random Things I've Learned...

2009-01-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

... after three years as a mother. :)

1) Pediatricians are not always right.
2) I really do know my daughter best.
3) Sleep "issues" come and go and in the end, it really doesn't matter if it is/was teething, growth spurt, mental leap, or nightmare. I help her through whatever it is, and eventually we get back to sleeping again, so why even try to guess...
4) There are great days and there are "those" days and you just hope to have more of the one to counter the frustrations of the other.
5) Parenting is the most mind numbing yet glorious job you can do. Finding a way to salvage your mind and do a good job is the trick. (Especially for SAHMs.)
6) Children are funny.
7) Watching your child do anything dangerous truly does stop your heart. Better make sure you are in good enough health to handle it.
8) If you can, stay close to your family. Support is priceless!
9) You WILL find yourself making up the strangest rules because you never knew what a creative little being you raised and what they would imagine up to do with a hand, a vanilla milk shake, and some whipped cream. The more creative the child, the more creative the rules.
10) Teaching a child proper behavior can sometimes be better than child proofing something. How will they learn what to do versus what not to do if they aren't even presented with the situation in the first place.
11) The only toy anyone wants to play with is the one that the other child is already playing with. I mean... if they like it, it must be the only thing worth liking right now. Hehe...
12) To go with 11... Once they learn the concept of taking turns, that suddenly becomes the reason the other child needs to give them the toy. They WANT A TURN! New rule needs to be put into place. Who knew?
13) You really will treasure and fawn over the blob of color your child tells you is a picture of your face.
14) There's nothing funnier than destroying daddy's tower.
15) A kiss from a child given freely, even slobbering all over you, is divine!
16) Talking poop is just another everyday conversation.
17) Your detergent can get food out of your clothes over, and over, and over again.
18) The generation gap is real.
19) Everyone, nowadays, has too many toys, but I think we need one more. :)
20) Being a family as a couple is SPECIAL, being a family with children is MEANINGFUL.

I'm sure I've got more, but I've got to get some sleep. Just some thoughts. :)

Ari and Jasmine's Princess Birthday

2009-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

Ari and her girlfriend Jasmine are the same age and have birthdays one day apart so they had a joint birthday party this year. It was a princess birthday party with essentially all girls. Ari is always more interested in boy things, so while all the other girls were interested in a princess costume for the most part, our girl went for the pirate costume. Hehe... It was a fun time for all!

Don't know why my embed is not working, but in case it starts working, I'm leaving it in. If it doesn't work, feel free to go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30157232@N06/sets/72157612684614593/show/

to see the pictures. :)

Praise

2009-01-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

Time... time.... time... I have not been posting and I'm sorry for it, but I have discovered this little known thing called Facebook and have been essentially spending my few free moments on there now instead of keeping up my blog. Facebook just makes it too easy to keep up with EVERYONE all at once. For those of you who have the ability to keep up with multiple playgroup message boards, blogs, facebook, and all the other things, my hats off to you. I don't know how you do it. :) Now back to my thoughts on Praise.

I have heard a lot about how child development classes are teaching people that you shouldn't over praise children. That it will teach them to listen to other peoples opinions or value of success more than their own. I have been praising Ari loads since she was little and have never given it much thought. After hearing all this I have been observing the interations as they occur and Ari's reaction to all the praise. Here is my conclusion...

Say what?? Too much praise is bad? Showing my child I value her successes is bad? Teaching children to want to please someone other than themselves some of the time is bad? We all know and see that children are inherently selfish beings when they first come out. The only thing they are focused on is themselves. It is nearly impossible for me to believe that through praise, these selfish beings will suddenly not care one iota about themselves and will just want to please others. I do see, that Ari is starting to want to please us some of the time, but I don't think that learning to please your parents some times is a bad thing. I remember when I was younger, the worst punishment I could get was when my parents said I disappointed them. That one, would sting for a long time while any groundings were just there and then not.

I hope that she does learn to please others sometimes and not just herself. I do make sure to sometimes throw in a "You must be so proud of yourself!" to emphasize for her that I hope she is also pleased, not just us, but why not do things to make others happy and proud some of the time. There are so many times we don't see and things we don't witness that there are plenty of opportunities for her to do things because it pleases her and no one else.

So I say... PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE!!! Hopefully, your child will learn there is balance in life between pleasing ourselves, pleasing others, and making our parents proud of us. What a great gift to give a child. :)

Sea World Butterfly

2008-12-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ari Update Promised

2008-12-09T01:35:00.000-08:00

I know... I know... Lately, life has just been more than enough to keep me busy. I'm sorry to any loyal followers for being disappointing the last month+. This is still going to have to be a quickie. Mostly because I have been getting death threats from family members who are wanting Ari updates! :) So.. In this set, you'll see the sunset from our backyard, Ari with friends, Ari with her family, playing video games, going on a nature walk and throwing rocks, going on a firetruck, playing at legoland and at the mall, and eating chocolate. I think that about gives the overall summation. :)

Thanks for being our friends and giving us such great memories and for following my erratic blog!

I Love You This Much Award

2008-10-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Rhonda for loving my blog enough to give me this award! She is a great blogger with a beautiful family. If you haven't checked out her blog before, then definitely go and read. :)

I think most everyone I know has already received this award, but I don't think my good friend, Anissa, has so I'm passing it on to her. She is an amazing woman, artist, and friend. Check out her blog to see daily interesting photos she has taken. Also scroll down to her cool 40th B-Day celebration post and link to the photos. She had a "death" theme and the costumes were awesome! Thanks for being great and having such a great blog!

Life Vs. Blogging Life

2008-10-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever found yourself in the situation where there are so many cool things going on in life that you want to blog about, but your so busy living it, you can't actually get around to blogging it. That's the last few weeks. This is going to have to be semi-superficial so that I can give a 10 ft. down view of what we have been doing. I still haven't gotten my stuff together enough to work with my pictures, so those will still have to wait.

We have had a plethora of Jewish holidays lately. If you don't know them, here is the quick list.

Rosh Hashanah - Jewish New Year
Yom Kipur - Holiest Day, Get Written into the Book of Life
Sukkot - Celebration of the Tabernacle and Harvest
And coming up next week:
Simchat Torah - Translated Joy of the Torah, Too hard to explain fast

On top of these holidays, my husband and I took another one night away vacation to San Francisco one of these past weekends. It was great and we were able to see his brother and sister-in-law.

We have some new memberships to local attractions that I would highly recommend. Ari is in love with Legoland and Sea Life. If you live anywhere nearish to Carlsbad, CA, I highly recommend getting a membership. If you have not seen Sea Life yet, I also highly recommend checking it out. This new aquarium put the Birch Aquarium in San Diego to total and complete shame. It may as well be a puddle compared to Sea Life. We are there at least once a week now.

Another great membership is to the Natural History Museum. Ari is a girl in love with Thomas the Train, rockets, helicopters, Go Diego Go, and lately, lots and lots of dinasours. We took her there recently and had so much fun for the whole family. They also have a mommy and me event there that we might try to make some time.

The last membership is to the new Children's Museum in downtown. She had a blast with painting the volkswagon, blowing bubbles, and creating streets with tape all over the lower floor.

Besides all of this, Ari has been having a really hard time sleeping lately. Who knows why and does it really matter? In the end, whether it is teething or growth spurt or nightmare or something else, no matter what, I'm going to comfort her and try to help her through it and be tired as a dog the next day. So... I've realized I can stop guessing and just focus on getting through whatever it is. The hardest part isn't the waking up over night, though that is no fun either, but it is trying to get her to sleep. She has been having a really hard time unwinding into sleep and we have been starting at 8 with 2 bed time shows in the hopes that 2 will unwind her more, then at 9 she goes up to brush her teeth and read books and then we struggle to get to sleep until after 11. Again, like I said, I'm sure we'll get through it, but I'm not getting a lot of extra time to do much of anything except catch up on sleep.

Oh... almost forgot... in the time I've been away, Ari started preschool and I've pulled her out of preschool. Hehe... That is a story for another time. I'll post again soon with the details. :)

I'm sure there is more, but I'll have to write that later as well. :)

War Wounds

2008-09-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

It is taking me a decent amount of time getting things together, especially all my picture things so I can make another update, so we interrupt your regularly scheduled update with an OpEd piece.

War wounds... That is what one of my friends who recently had a baby used to describe the damage she is going to have to live with from her babies birth. It really got me thinking because that is a perfect description of ALL of what we deal with after having a baby. It doesn't matter if it is damage to a certain area, the scar running along the underside of your belly from having a c-section, the loose skin, stretch marks, floppy breasts, extra pounds, wider hips, or emotional damage. These are all our war wounds that we acquired taking on the most important job that exists in the world... producing life. What nobler cause could we possibly have undertaken than to put our bodies through hell so that a little being can get to live. Are we brave? You bet. Not only are there the things that you know about going into it, but there is always a list a mile long of things you don't know about that you might have to face so we are brave in the face of the known AND the unknown. Especially, those of us who do it more than once, having gone down the path, seeing how our bodies have changed, we still want to face all of it again to bring another little bundle to life.

So... if these are our war wounds, why is it that society makes us feel that ALL of our war wounds are ugly and disfiguring while a man's scar from taking a life, protecting a life, or just being manly and getting into a brawl, is sexy. You know... the whole, "Oh, nice scar. There must be a great story behind that, Mr. Dangerous." Or, bullet wound scars for being so brave as to protect a life. My body protected life and then fought for it. The C-section scar after 40+ hours of labor, is proof that I did what I had to do to protect my babies life. She and I were both going to die if this hadn't been an option. It is risking death to have a baby. Not as much now, but things do go wrong sometimes.

Also, what about our emotional damage. Even if you don't suffer from post-partum depression (ppd), you still take away some emotional baggage and almost EVERYONE I know has had the baby blue's at the very least, since our hormones and flying high. These are war wounds too. Even if you get over it, the feelings/memories linger and are a part of you forever. The days of crying after Ari was born are there forever etched into my mind. Without a basic support system (meaning stay close to home and good friends which we weren't) you just don't know how to cope with it all. Then you feel guilty for having negative feelings and it all spills over into baby blue's/PPD.

I am going to start thinking of the various issues within my soul and on the outside of my body as the war wounds my friend described and remember to look at them as such. They aren't ugly, they are the signs that I fought a good fight to have my daughter and all the joy she brings into the world with her.

I raise my blog glass to all the mothers and their war wounds. I salute you!

Dang Hard Drives!

2008-09-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

I know I have been absent for a long time. I'm sorry about that. I have been dealing with drama with my fridge and more recently, drama with my laptop. Turns out my hard drive is having some REALLY bad mechanical failure and we aren't sure if we will be able to salvage anything off of it or not. Until then, we did get me a new hard drive and recently installed it and hopefully I will be up and running smoothly soon. I just wanted to come in and let you know what has been going on that has been interrupting my updates and thoughts. I'll be back as soon as I get my bearings! I have so many posts to make!

Safta Leah Turns 80

2008-09-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

We had a party for my Grandma's 80th while we were in Israel. Her birthday is truly the only reason to go to Israel in August! Otherwise, choose a cooler month. :) It was held in a party room of a restaurant and had a DJ along with a trumpet player. We were worried that Ari would freak out having so many new people wanting to hold/play with her all in one room along with loud music. What really happened? She befriended EVERYONE and danced all night! Following is a sampling of the pictures from the party. Of course, most include my little angel or my grandma. :) Love you Safta Leah! Happy 80th! Oh... And everyone got up to say some nice things about my Grandma. I thought I would include the shot of me nervously public speaking. I hate talking in front of people!! I get so nervous, my stomach does flips, my hands start getting a little shaky and I drone on and on. Luckily, this time, while I got very nervous, especially having to speak in front of everyone in Hebrew, I made sure to keep it short.. Whew!

Beit Guvrin Caves and Tel Maresha Excavations

2008-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

The day after Haifa, we went to Beit Guvrin Caves and Tel Maresha Excavations in the Latrun area of Israel. You park at in one of a few parking lots and then you hike around between the various caverns most of which weren't that extensive, but a few were really amazing. This was an ancient society and much of what we saw were either living quarters, cisterns, burial grounds, or the areas where they worked at olive pressing. You will also see Roadie the Raccoon in one of the pictures in this set. :) These are not the most flattering pictures of me, but I am an out of shape mom running around in 100+ degree weather through the desert climbing up and down a bunch of stairs. Please give me a little itty bitty break. :)

Grrrr....

2008-09-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

So... This is a quick post to share my frustration. I have been trying to post another installment of my Israel trip and pictures, but I am experiencing some technical difficulty with Flickr and have now contacted them to tell me what is wrong. I tried a few different times and ways to deal with my problem, but nothing has worked so... I can't do another installment until I get that figured out. I want to use the sideshow so that you can see all the photos without it taking up a lot of space.

So... be back soon with that post.

Baha'i Gardens

2008-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

This post begins a series reviewing my trip in Israel and our return trip.

Our first stop was in Tel Aviv where we saw some family and tried to stay awake until night time and sleep as best we could through the night. Unfortunately, Ari didn't like the idea of sleeping through the night, so instead we slept part of the night and then spent a few hours in bed all together watching DVDs on our laptops and singing quietly in the dark until hours later, we all finally fell asleep again. This might well be the first time we have had a family bed. Maybe the second, but either way, it's rare and very sweet.

The next day we spent in Jerusalem and I didn't remember to take any pictures, but my sister-in-law did, so I'll have to update a post later on with pictures and information about this day.

The third day was a relaxing day and my Grandma's 80th BDay and again, I will update with this because while I have some pictures from the professional photographer there,I know my SIL got some good shots and I want to wait to add them to the group.

This brings us to my first post. It is about our next day which was a trip up to Haifa located in Northern Israel along the coast about an hour to an hour and a half away from Tel Aviv. We went to Elijah's Cave which I, again, don't have pictures of, but to be honest, other than being neat because it is Elijah's cave, it was nothing to interesting. It was literally a tiny hole in the wall type of cave near the coast of the city. So we'll just skip any pictures of it. The next stop, though, after lunch, was the Baha'i Gardens. Here is the link to their website for information about the religion if you are interested in learning more. And below are all my pictures of the gardens themselves. They are truly impressive and beautiful!

My parents and my husband decided to head back with Ari after this, but my brother, SIL, and myself continued exploring Haifa. We walked around this beautiful sculpture garden and then took some cable cars up to a monastery. I don't really have any pictures of the monastery because it was really dark and somewhat unimpressive. The views were great and the ride up was fun. :) Keep your eyes open for a raccoon in the pictures. My SIL and some friends, taking a note from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, created a group the Sisterhood of the Traveling Roadie (raccon's name). When each of them takes a vacation they get to take Roadie with them and need to take pictures of him on his vacation. It was rather fun thinking up cool/funny places to put Roadie. I'm going to probably be stealing this idea for our kids when they get old enough to enjoy it. Make sure you take note of Roadie being used as a tennis ball between two sculptures. :)

Speaking of my SIL and brother, here is a beautiful pictures of them when we stopped to get something to drink. It was D*MN hot there! Hehe...

I'll post more about the trip soon. :) Organizing all these photos.

On the way back....

2008-08-24T05:33:00.001-07:00

We will be heading home tonight. Really it is tomorrow morning, but that is only because it is at 12:50AM!!!!!! I know that they think this will help with adjusting to the jet lag since I will get to sleep on the plane, but how do you tell that to your cranky and sleepy 2 1/2 year old! Any, I have a lot of pictures and a lot of stories to share. I will start with one picture for now, which is the first picture of this trip and happened on our flight out....

Ari was such a sweet child the whole way. She REALLY tried to be good and helpful and I was so impressed with her. Her dad and I had our arsenal of books, DVDs, games, and songs and between all these, somehow with a child screaming 2 rows away the whole trip, she was able to get some sleep. I didn't get any sleep except 45 minutes while her dad distracted her, but overall the flight could have gone WAY worse. Doesn't she look like a little angel? Oh... and as you can see in this picture, I brought her pillow along for the ride so she had a piece of home. She also had her pacifier and her froggy and that made everything great as far as she was concerned. One thing I learned from the trip was that I needed to say, lets go make new friends instead of change a diaper. Why argue over changing the diaper, when it can be a part of the making new friends routine. Every time we would get up, people would joke with her and play with her. I have mentioned in my mommy group before that El Al is a SUPER child friendly airline and they once again lived up to their reputation. The changing tables have these posters near them so that the kids have something to look at and be distracted during the change, they have great food as well as providing child friendly meals if ordered ahead of time, they handed me a puzzle game out to all the children, and the crew LOVES kids! They kept asking her her name, one grabbed her in a friendly way to tickle her and play with her, another was giving her high fives and asking how old she was, and another was laughing with her. There are always so many children on the flight so while it can be a negative at times like the child who screamed the whole way, it is also a great positive because you never have to feel self conscience if your child gets mad at some point.

Anyway... since I still have to pack for tonights crazy late flight... I'm off, but when we get back to San Diego, I will make sure to do a big update about the whole trip. :)

Cheers!

We're Off!

2008-08-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

So.. It's 5:45AM and I am up finishing our packing. Blech! I'm really excited for our trip to Israel but this is the stage where I start feeling like I am definitely going to forget something. There are so many little things that we can't live without because we have our 2 1/2 year old with us. Packing just for the two of us used to be so easy... Throw some clothes in a suitcase and if we forget something either "who cares" or we'll just get a replacement whatever it is when we get somewhere. Somehow children don't really do well with replacements and oh boy do they care if something they need to help them sleep is missing. Oh well... back to it then before the dictator, erm my angel wakes up. :) I'll do my best to get on here in the next 10 days, but it really all depends on the hotel internet connection. Otherwise, see you in ten days! :)

Why would you get out of bed today?

2008-08-14T22:46:00.001-07:00

So.. Ari has either been sick or teething and I have been teeter-tottering back and forth on thinking it is one or the other. I am back to thinking that it is teething because she has been grinding her teeth all day long!

That said.. it really doesn't matter in the middle of the night why she is waking up, just that she is. Last night she and I were up for two hours between 2:50 - 5 AM. It was awesome, and by awesome what I means is... it totally sucked. Hehe... I don't usually like to hold pow wows in the middle of the night, but for the last couple of weeks, I am becoming rather good at them. So.. my day actually started last night.

To continue my day, while getting out of my car to go into Babies R Us I stepped full on into gum. YUCK! So I limp my way into BRU asking for some paper towels or tissue to clean it up as Ari is running around like crazy with my mom trying to reign her in. As I finish with my shoe, I turn and find Ari being adorable. (A saving grace for my day.) When you walk into BRU they have these colored tiles on the floor with these symbolic pictures of a heart, moon, sun, and something else. On the side of where I was standing is a post and on it, they have the same symbols in a column. I see Ari run from the column to one of the squares and yell, "I did it!" Then she ran back and says, "Hmm... What's next on my list? Heart!" She runs to the heart on the ground and yells again, "I did it!" It was so cute. She had created a game for herself like a scavenger hunt for the right tile in the right order from her "list." Guess I'll have to forgive her my lack of sleep. *sigh*

We are both tired and I think I have gotten her down for her nap at 12:15, but not so. Instead she was just quiet for a bit and then pooped and didn't get back to taking her nap until 1:15. So much for our early afternoon plans. Hehe... After we woke up, we left for the mall again with my mom. (I promise I am not always shopping, but we have a lot to get before leaving the country.)

Now... I thought after discussing my miscarriage so freely, I wouldn't be embarrassed to discuss almost anything with you all, but to understand my day, I'll just deal. I have gotten, a day ago, my first period since the miscarriage. (This is actually a good thing, because to try again we had to wait until after the first period and here it is. :) ) The bad thing, is that I had no idea, to add to all the other things I didn't know about miscarriage, just how strong your first period might be. So... we are at the mall and I didn't think to bring anything with me because I should be fine for a couple of hours. Well... Thank god that my mom and dad were there, dad showed up after us, because I left Ari with them and went to find a restroom. When I get there I realize I am in trouble. I left my money with my mom and am a complete disaster and need some feminine product from the machine. Luckily, I had my phone and called from the bathroom. My dad is watching Ari while my mom is coming to the rescue. That was a fun moment.

All the time we were walking around the mall, after the parents left, Ari keeps wanting up, so I've got my backpack diaper bag on my back, my 28 lb. girl on my hip, and a bunch of other bags dangling from various fingers as I am trying to get back to the car. I was a might bit physically tired by the end of the excursion.

So... we get home and I realize. DANGIT! I forgot about my personal training session I had scheduled today. Another session I have paid for down the drain. I need all of my responsibilities to start understanding text message reminders so that I can be less flaky. :(

Here is my bad mommy moment... We get home and I'm like... "Hey honey.. Why don't you play on your computer so mommy can veg out on the couch and pray for tomorrow to come." Now understand, Ari loves her computer and I feel like I am constantly having to drag her away from it while we are at home so for me to purposefully propose it, is definitely saying something. Regardless, I ended up playing with her a bit and I got this awesome picture of her:
This is Ari playing her first online multiplayer game by herself, Toon Town. She needs help with some of the mini games, but you can see her little fingers walking her mouse around using the arrows. :) Oh.. and one of the things we had to have at the mall was the really cute butterfly wings you see in this picture. She refused to take them off until we got ready for bed!

Back to the main topic... Daddy got home and continued playing with her so I could make us dinner. I go to pull out my cookie sheet and it swings back and just whacks me in the knee. I KNOW that is going to bruise! I put the aluminum foil down, pull open the oven to put the sheet in and realize that it is easier to make dinner if you put the food you are making on the cookie sheet AND turn on the oven. So I get the hot dogs and lay them out and give the oven a chance to heat up... That would have been a good idea if I had AGAIN remembered to turn on the oven. *sigh* Oven is on, food is on the cookie sheet, and dinner gets made (though overcooked because I lost track of time).

I was ready for bed hours ago and yet here I am writing to you all about my constantly mis-stepped day. I'm off to bed though so I can have a tea party with my daughter tonight at 3 AM. I guess if we are both going to be up every night I might as well make it fun. Hehe...

Here is another random picture of us for those enjoying the Ari updates. We went to Sea World yesterday (a much better day that was so totally unblogable :) ) and rode the Elmo's flying fish ride. We did other things, but I don't have pictures of anything else. So, here we are in the fish she had to have, the pig-fish. I practically got into a fist fight with another mom over said fish, so I'm glad she enjoyed it so much!
Tomorrow's another day. :) Hopefully, that one will have me injuring less, needing rescuing less, and remembering just a little bit better. Ari has a dermatologist appointment to deal with her sunscreen issues (i.e. she has broken out from every sunscreen I have ever tried on her). Wish us luck!

Going to the Holy Land

2008-08-13T01:15:00.000-07:00

Just preparing everyone for a potential absence again.

We will be leaving on Sunday to go to Israel. We are going to see my family and friends there, but also to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday with her. I can't wait for everyone to see Ari because the last time she was there was when she was 15 months old (last year) and she has totally changed since then. Everyone is going to love how independent and sassy she is not to mention how adorable!

We plan on touring some of the time that we are there and hopefully, if I remember to pull out my camera, I will have some great touring as well as family shots. I'm not sure about the access I will have to my computer, so posting after Saturday will be hit and miss at best. I do get back a week later and will post then.

For now, my days are filled with last minute things I need to get done. I've even made a list a mile long of everything we need to pack so I don't forget anything. When I say a mile long, I'm not joking! Traveling with a little one for 14 hours to a foreign country for a week is just asking to have back pain through an airport. Oh well... that's what vacations are for... Right? Recuperation! We'll see if it turns out to work that way.

My brother and his wife flew over yesterday. They had a layover in Brussels and lo and behold, the people of Brussels who work in the airline industry decided to have a strike. The airline that they were on had to put them on a bus to Amsterdam and they caught a flight out of there. The bus ride was hours long and delayed them quite a bit. They finally did fly into Israel, but as it turns out, the airport there is a complete zoo. Apparently, there are planes coming in from Georgia (the country not the state) as people try to escape the war breaking out. It's just nice to know that they finally made it to the hotel and all was well with them.

Now I can only pray we don't have any adventures like them. We have a direct flight, so hopefully no surprises. I don't DO surprises. Hehe...

I'm off to bed to dream about lists and all the things I have forgotten.

Where's my money?

2008-08-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

Just a funny little story I had to share.

So.. I'm getting ready to take my daughter and my mom somewhere but afterwards I know I am going to be running to exercise so I throw on exercise clothes. I look in my jeans pockets to see if there is anything there that I should be taking with me and I spot a dollar bill and think, what the hell. Of course, my exercise outfit doesn't have any pockets so I put the dollar between the waist band of the exercise pants and my belly thinking, I just need to remember to move it to my wallet when I get downstairs.

Fast forward to the bathroom of the LA Fitness and guess what falls on the floor as I pull down my pants. Hmm.. oh ya. Where am I gonna put this now... Okay... so it went in the bra just for the duration of the bathroom visit and once I'm finished I put it back at the waist thinking, well, it made it through exercise, it can make it to the car. As murphy's law would have it, as I am walking out the door of the LA Fitness, I feel something on my hip, INSIDE my pants. *gulp* Okay.. stay cool. Keep walking... Ack! Now it is at the juncture of my leg and hip. "I JUST HAVE TO MAKE IT TO THE CAR!" Keep walking... Um... Now it is stuck to my thigh. "PLEASE DON'T FALL OUT IN THE PARKING LOT!" and...... WHEW! I made it! I made it!

Moral of the story: Don't "waist" your money! Hehe...

Ari & Jasmine

2008-08-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

Ari has made a new friend and her name is Jasmine. With Jasmine's mother's permission, here are some photos of these girls. They are quite a pair!

We went to the zoo one day and the girls found this caterpillar to climb all over and of course at first they wanted to take it all for themselves, but they learned the fun of sharing.

Unfortunately, I missed the main event, but we said, give kisses, and the girls actually gave each other a smooch. It was so adorable! This was right after.

Then we caught some music and hula hooping and the girls just had to jump right in. :)

On another day, we visited Jasmine, her mommy Jade, and her sister Pearl at their house. Once again, the girls showed they could share. They also showed they made good cats! How adorable is this?

The girls also take dance lessons together and are always looking forward to seeing each other in class. Recently, we went to the mall and while walking around they held hands with each other and walked around giggling! We love it!

Be Back Soon

2008-08-04T00:19:00.000-07:00

Every day I think... I will be able to find the time to post something fabulous tonight or at the very least post an update about Ari and every night I find my self so busy/tired/distracted that I just can't pull it all together. I appreciate all of my loyal readers checking in with me and I do promise I will be back to my writing and updates per usual very soon.

For now, I will leave you with a quickie.

My miscarriage: I know I posted that most web sites say to contact your doctor if you are bleeding for more than 2 weeks, but after about 2 1/2 weeks (I gave myself leeway) it dropped down to very light almost spotty bleeding and I thought... today will be the last day.. I'll wait until tomorrow to call the doc. This has gone on for an extra 2 weeks of me putting off having a medical intervention since it was so light. I think that I have finally turned that corner and can start planning for our future again.

Ari: Still reading up a storm. She's gotten sick again with a cold and so we have had to keep it low key for a few days which with Ari means high energy but stuck at home. So yesterday, after being totally stir crazy, we took her for her first nature hike and we all had a blast except that it got way to hot way to fast so we were only out walking about 45 mintutes. Still... she had a great time and we all got some fresh air and exercise. Ari has also discovered dressing up and here is one example of that:How cute is she? Neigh!!! She has also started getting super affectionate by giving out hugs. :) It's really cute.

One of her favorite books right now is a sing along as you turn the page book by Raffi named Baby Beluga. It was introduced to her in her music class and she has fallen in love with it ever since. Now, she actually tried to sing along which brings tears to my eyes its so cute.

My Mom and Dad watched Ari this weekend so we could go see X-Files. I thought it was okay. Definitely not my favorite, but if you like the show, it passes for a long episode. Last weekend, for the second time, I saw Mama Mia (I saw it the weekend before as well). I LOVE this movie and totally recommend it to anyone who likes Abba music. Even if you don't like Abba music but love theater and movies that just make you feel good, this is the one you want to see. The weekend before, it came in direct contrast for me, it was a movie full weekend, with Dark Knight, which I also thought was great, but definitely extremely dark.

Anyway, Ari has a new friend and some amazing pictures with this new friend, but I still need to confirm with the mom that I can post them. Hopefully, that will be the next post. That and another opinion piece soon. :)

Again, thanks for sticking this through with me. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun without knowing you'all were out there (even my lurkers)! Hehe...

Quick Addendum to Such Language!

2008-07-17T00:36:00.000-07:00

Today Daddy walks Ari up to Safta's house and points to the sky and says, "Look. There are clouds over there, but no clouds over there." Ari looks up at the sky and says straight faced, "That's weird." Hehe..

Some of her more memorable quotes lately...

"Don't trick me!"
"Don't chase me!"
When telling her to do something she doesn't want to do... "What did you say?" LOL

And best of all... Safta taught her to say... "Happy Birthday Mommy!" Awww.... So sweet!

Such language!

2008-07-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

Ari was literally a chatterbox today. She talked all day long. I'm surprised she was able to say anything at all by evening. Here are some of the cute and funny highlights.

We were at JC Penny and my mom found her a fold out chair. We opened it to see if she would like it in front of the really nice cashier woman who had been helping me. Ari sat in it and I said, do you like it? She said, "Yes! It's nice and warm." LOL

We are in the car and all of a sudden she just says, "I still never got my rocketship." Huh? and LOL I tried to figure out what rocketship she was talking about, but never heard another thing about it. Hehe... There is some unclaimed rocket ship out there that my daughter is thinking of. :)

We are in the bathroom before bed washing our hands. We sing Twinkle, Twinkle while washing our hands because that is the length of time you are supposed to wash your hands for. Anyway... Ari starts singing and part way through the song, mommy thinks she is so cute singing that she kisses her on the head. Ari stumbles on the words, forgets her place in the song, and says, "OH MAN! (that's a quote from Swiper on Dora), Start over." Then she starts her song over again looking at me like, "you aren't gonna mess this one up too, are you?" Hehe...

Still in the bathroom, it is time to brush our teeth. Ari takes her toothbrush and turns on the water, she wets it and then realizes that it is ALL WRONG! She wants the water quieter. She turns down the water to just a trickle, shakes her toothbrush all around so the offending loud water that was on it would fly off, and then re-wets the toothbrush with the now correctly volumed water. I was lucky not to pee my pants for this one.

Finally, we are in her bedroom, just changed for bed, I usually say goodnight at this point and leave Daddy to read books, so I said, can I have a hug? She ran over and gave me a hug. :) Then I say, "Okay. Now a kiss goodnight." And we exchange a sweet little kiss. Awww... She starts to walk away, turns around, and says, "Kisses all over! Kisses all over!" Runs back into my arms for kisses all over her face. I am about to cry just typing this.

She can truly have me rolling and crying all day long. Children are so amazing!

Bay of Play, Flags, and Planters

2008-07-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been there, I love the new Bay of Play at Sea World. Ari had such a good time on a recent visit. I didn't get a lot of pictures, because a lot of our time there we were just the two of us, but once my mom joined us, we caught a couple of cute pictures of Ari getting to meet Grover. She was so excited!

For the fourth of July, every year, there is a really nice real estate agent that comes to our neighborhood and deposits these little flags in everyones yard. It always makes for a nice fourth of July surprise. :)
Remember me alluding to a planter in an earlier post, well here is what my husband and his father built during this most recent visit. We wanted a raised garden so it was easy to maintain without bending over and they did an amazing job! This is just the first. We plan on doing two more. :) Isn't it beautiful?

This next picture shows you starting from left, that we have two roma tomato plants and an artichoke plant.
Next to that, we have four strawberry plants and finally 4 Japanese cucumber plants.

We are not sure how all of these will do, but we can't wait to see and eat! In the next two planters we plan on putting some herbs and other vegetables. We may even get a second artichoke plant and move the strawberry ones over to one of the other planters since they tend to grow out a lot and who couldn't use more artichokes. :) If you have any suggestions for things to grow, we are all ears. The things we are considering but were told some are more winter season while others we could plant now are: peas, baby carrots, onions, string beans, and maybe even corn. For herbs, I'm sure it will be like basil, thyme, mint, oregano, and pretty much all your basic herbs.

As far as how I am doing personally... for anyone still interested in knowing more about miscarriage, read on, others feel free to skip. So today was the worst. Apparently, all that minor cramping pain was leading up to a big tahdah and that was today. Intense pain (took 2 motrin) and loads of ickyness. By tonight though, I'm back to moderate bleeding, so I hope that means I have made it through the worst and am cresting over that hill.

As a good friend pointed out in the comments of an earlier post, it is a process. I am a big believer that medicine is best used when it is absolutely needed. Our bodies go through so many day to day process and then there are big events. Just because they are big events, for me, doesn't make them less a process. I am a big proponent of natural birth. I think the birthing process (notice the word there) is something that the body just goes through and when you go through it, certain things like hormones and such are all released at the appropriate times, the body reacts to things at the appropriate time, etc. When these process are altered, who knows what we are doing to our bodies experience and reactions. Maybe I'm just coming off as some big tree hugger. Truth is, one day, for those that haven't heard it before, I'll post Ari's birth story, but needless to say, neither I nor she would have made it without modern medicine, so I don't dispute the wonders that medicine does provide us with. I just believe, like with Ari, it should be used when there is no choice. I decided that principle held true with this as well, and I think, letting it follow its own path has let me come down from the hormonal high of pregnancy at a steady pace. I definitely couldn't imagine dealing with todays pain on top of all the pain from previous days all mushed into one. That seems like it would be so hard. There was definitely a part of me that wished to just get it over with, but.. ouch! The gradual definitely worked for me.

Anyway... this means there probably won't be too many more posts touching on this subject. :)

Where in the world is Michelle?

2008-07-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

Okay... so I've dropped off the face of the earth again and I appreciate everyone who has been checking in thinking, where'd she go? Here is a quick rundown and I'll try to post more over the weekend.

Since the last post, I had my in-laws come for a visit that went great except for the fact that Ari got sick and my miscarriage has finally arrived. Ari had what the doctor called the Adenovirus. Needless to say her fever spiked up to 104 one night and she ran around in a horrible mood grabbing at her throat and mouth. Poor baby was miserable!

Mommy had a slow lead up to the miscarriage on the other hand. (If this is TMI - too much information, please feel free to skip this paragraph, but since I mentioned we should talk about this more, this is another part of the process I wasn't quite clear on.) It started with spotting for a couple of days that were followed with very light period like bleeding and has progressed about 5 days later into painful, crampy, clotty bleeding. ICK! I know. Anyway... I'm hoping since I am in the painful stage, I will be done with this soon. Apparently, if you go more than two weeks, you need to see your doctor so I've got just under another week to go to be finished.

On top of all this, on Tuesday my in-laws left (COME BACK!) and John gets home from work with a cold that I also start to feel that night. We think Ari has gotten over her illness which we went to Urgent care for on Sunday and went to her doctor's as follow up on Monday and by Wednesday morning we were sure she was going to feel better except... she woke up with the same cold. *sigh* It's never fun when the whole family is sick. Thank God for all the help we had from my in-laws and from my parents. They are amazing!

Coming into this weekend, though, we are all starting to feel better from the cold and hopefully the miscarriage will start to sort itself out. I am happy that I waited for it, because experiencing all of this all at once would be really hard. I am not saying it is the only right choice, but the right one for me. Maybe over the next few months I'll be able to come back here with joyful baby new. Keep your fingers crossed for me. :)

One project I'll be posting about soon is our raised garden that my husband and his father worked on while he was here. It looks so great! There are two more to build and then plant, plant, plant. :) Can't wait!

Write more soon!