She Says… Picture Day

I know I just posted a bunch of vacation photos and I’m sure most (all?) of you are tired of looking at pictures of my kid. But we just got Owen’s school picture back today and I have to share it.

WHEN DID MY BABY GET SO DARN OLD?!

Also, really REALLY wish we had gotten his hair cut prior to the picture being taken. But, you know, life happens. And my little boy was rockin’ a surfer dude style for picture day.

Oh how he’s grown since last year’s pic:

He looks so much more… serious. And thoughtful. And mature. And while I definitely see that same devilish look from 2012 these days, there IS something more grown up about him.

We’ll be fighting about laser backgrounds for these pictures in no time.

She Says… Slap. Hit. Whack. Poke.

I bet it’s getting old hearing me talk about Owen’s issue with using gentle hands. Believe me, I’m tired of talking about it. But honestly? It’s this one recurring issue that won’t seem to go away. And while I know it’s a totally normal developmental phase, I have the momentary nightmare that he’s going to grow up to be a bully and to use his own strength to hurt others. And the thought of that just kills me.

Every kid has their “thing”, right?

In almost every way, Owen is a total joy. He’s sweet and funny and follows the rules (ahem, most of the time). He sleeps like a dream and is super social and fearless in all the best ways. He’s an adventurous eater and smart well beyond his years. He remembers amazing details about just about everything and his imitations of people bring me close to wetting my pants with hysterical laughter.

But y’all? The kid is ROUGH.

When he was a baby, this quality used to be a source of pride. “He barely even cries when he falls/bonks/tumbles. He’s so resilient.” I loved the way he would pick himself right back up, brush himself off, and try whatever he was trying again. I much preferred this rough-and-tumble style to others who I saw crying on the playground because someone cut in front of them in line at the slide, or melting into a sobbing mess when someone brushed past them as they were running by. And I’m sure I reinforced it by praising his strength and impressive motor skills. Being tough was a good thing, right?

And then as the months went by, we started filling out incident report after incident report at school. Owen got a bloody lip from running into a bookcase. Owen jumped off the climber and scraped his knee. Owen got a black eye from hitting himself in the face with a book during playtime. And after a while the incidents began to center around altercations with friends. Owen scratched a friend when they both wanted to play with the cash register toy. Owen grabbed a friend by the neck and pulled him to the ground when they were both using the bubbles. Owen kicked his teacher when she told him it was time to clean up his toys.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not think there is some huge issue here. I’m not actually worried about my kid becoming an axe-murderer because he’s going through a rough phase. I think he’s just learning how to control his body. And I wonder if it’s partly because he is so advanced in other areas, that this body-control area is one that has taken a backseat, so he has some catching up to do. Kind of like kids who walk early and talk late.

Sigh.

Like all phases, I’m sure this too shall pass. In the meantime, we’re using the sticker chart with some success, and talking constantly about what gentle hands look and feel like. And we’ve been instituting “rest your body” times (aka time outs), with limited success, when his behavior could hurt other people.

Last night after dinner, Owen walked right up to me and SLAPPED me on the back. I spun around and said, “Hey! Buddy! That hurt! We do NOT slap people like that. Do you need to go rest your body?”. He responded, “No. I was just BURPING YOU LIKE A BABY, Mommy.”.

Benjamin and I died laughing. At least he’s creative!

 

She Says… Sweet Reward

Remember Owen’s recurring issue of not always being so gentle with his friends (aka the not terribly uncommon phenomenon of my generally well-mannered child attacking his friends)? And that simple little sticker chart we instituted for successful school days without an altercation?

Well, it worked beautifully. Stickers are an amazing motivator for 2 year olds. Or, my two year old, at least.

Owen was SO PROUD when he asked his teachers at the end of the day, “Do I get a sticker?” and he knew the answer when he had a little lapse in  memory and forgot what “gentle hands” really meant. The last month or so wasn’t perfect, but the chart and the promise of a sticker was a very strong motivator for good behavior.

As we got closer to the end, Benjamin and I made a big deal of saying, “Oh, the chart is almost filled! When you get to the end you’ll get a really special treat.”. We had no idea how long it would take him to fill up the chart, and really had no special treat in mind, but I figured I’d play it by ear and let Owen help pick the reward. As the chart filled up, Owen would guess, “I think it’s an airplane” or “It’s a bear. Is it a bear?”. Adorable.

To be honest, he has enough toys and I do my best to limit crap accrual, so when he finally filled the chart, I gave him a choice. We could take a walk to our local toy store and pick out a small toy OR we could go out for ice cream. His choice.

The fact that he chose ice cream so quickly and with such glee just goes to show you how rare treats like that are around here   I was so glad that was his choice… I was craving some myself!

So last Saturday we headed to the local Pinkberry for a celebrating of gentle hands. Now before you get all up on my case for giving him the “healthy” ice cream instead of a splurge, it was based largely on the fact that Pinkberry frozen yogurt (and most soft-serve that comes out of a dispenser rather than a carton) is gluten free. As are many of the toppings. Due to Benjamin’s (and possibly Owen’s) celiac disease, getting ice cream scooped at a normal ice cream place is a breeding ground for cross contamination (if the scooper touches a cone and then goes in the ice cream carton, or touches a kind of ice cream with gluten in it, there is a good chance there’s gluten getting in our order, even if we order a gluten-free ice cream flavor and a cup). And I knew how much he would love choosing his toppings (and they use separate spoons for every topping, so although the risk of cross-contamination with toppings still exists, I felt comfortable letting him pick fruit or M&Ms as his toppings).

It was AWESOME.

He had a blast. And savored every bite of that delicious ice cream. As did Benjamin and I.

So now the question is… do we start another sticker chart or has it done its job? The jury is still out. He still needs some reminders about using gentle hands at school (and the last few days his teeth have been bothering him as his 3 year molars are coming in and he’s been threatening to bite again — ugh!), but I don’t want to over-do the sticker thing. I also want to reserve the next sticker chart for our big boy bed transition and any “bad” behaviors that may come from that transition.

She Says… Ladies Who Lunch

After I posted Owen’s cutesy Valentine’s Day lunch I got a comment asking me for more info about what I usually send for him for lunch at school. In fact, I posted the same picture on my personal Facebook page and it started a long conversation about the same sort of topic (“what is that?” “how do you make it?” “where did you get that cute lunchbox?”). Apparently this is a hot topic!

It’s a hot topic that I don’t touch very often because I know talking about food can bring out strong emotions in some people. Yes, many mamas out there would simply like to see what others are sending for toddler/kid lunches to get ideas for themselves (I fall into this camp!), but I have noticed that when I have posted about food in the past it either elicits criticism of my own choices, or criticism that it seems like I am judging other peoples’ food choices if they don’t eat just like me (ahem, this post).

So before I even broach the subject of food, I’d like to say: I think a lot about what I feed my family and what I eat. We have some dietary restrictions (with Benjamin and Owen both eating strictly gluten free, which means not even using products that say “processed in a facility with wheat”). I have a philosophy that I do my best to follow, which includes eating mostly whole, unprocessed foods. We eat snacks out of bags and frozen chicken nuggets once in a while, and I don’t consider this to be “cheating” or “bad” or detrimental to our overall health. That said, I am NOT judging you for how you eat, or how you feed your kids. We all make choices for different reasons. Please don’t hate on mine, and I won’t hate on yours.

So for those of you who want to hear how feeding Owen is going these days WITHOUT judging, here it is! On a normal day, he eats breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks. He has milk before breakfast and at lunch and dinner. Now that he’s using an open cup at lunch and dinner, he drinks FAR less milk than he used to, and water in between meals. I am very blessed to have a good eater. Sure, he’s gone through picky phases and throwing food on the floor phases and food strike stages, but overall he is an adventurous and open-minded little foodie. We have established that if there’s something he doesn’t want to eat, he has to take one “no thank you bite” before he can refuse it. Recently we’ve started introducing treats after dinner like “special cereal” (Honey Nut Chex), animal crackers, fruit, cookies or a few mini marshmallows.

Breakfast consists of generally the same 3 buckets. Grains (something bread-y like waffles or pancakes, which we make ahead of time and freeze, Rice or Corn Chex cereal, zucchini/banana bread, etc.), protein (eggs, yogurt, cheese), and fruit.

Lunch is usually a protein (generally leftover dinner protein, gluten free lunch meat, cheese, beans, tofu, etc.), a veggie, and “something else” (which could be another veggie, a fruit, a grain-y side like rice or quinoa, nuts/seeds/dried fruit, etc.).

Leftover roast chicken, cheese stick and red/green peppers.

Edamame, tofu & rice noodles with a sesame/soy sauce from the previous night’s dinner, and steamed sugar snap peas.

Cheese, tomatoes, broccoli/cauliflower, lemon quinoa with parsley & feta.

I love seeing the notes his teachers write about how much of everything he ate. Recently he’s been not eating the veggies that he eats without issue at home, but in the past it was the complete opposite (he would eat everything at school and nothing at home). I don’t sweat it. This is what I offer him. Whatever he eats, he eats. Whatever he doesn’t, he doesn’t.

Dinner is usually a protein (beef, poultry, fish, tofu, beans — since the celiac diagnosis, we have been eating more meat than we did before), a veggie and “something else” (usually a starchy veggie like sweet potatoes or grain like rice, quinoa, pasta or toasted bread).

Snacks are usually a fruit/veggie and something crunchy (pretzels, popcorn, cereal, granola bar). At home I also include nuts/seeds here, but his school is nut free, so we save those snacks for home.

So far this method has been working out really well for us. Owen will even ask me sometimes, “What has protein in it?”. Whenever  possible I give him choices like, “For protein for breakfast, do you want cheese or eggs?”. I’m hoping it gives him an idea of how to balance his own meals when that day comes.

What do you send your kids for lunch? I would love to hear your ideas! I love to check out sites like Weelicious and 100 Days of Real Food for tips as well.

P.S. Those cute bento box containers that I use for his lunch are called LunchBots and are sold on Amazon. They are the perfect size for portioned breakfasts and lunches!

She Says… Bestill My Heart

It’s Valentine’s Day, y’all.

I told Owen it was “a day we tell our friends and family how much we love them”. He grabbed my cheeks, looked me right in the eyes and gushed, “I love you so much, Mommy”.

I’m done. That’s all I ever wanted for Valentine’s Day. Or any day, really.

Owen’s school has a cute tradition of celebrating this lovey dovey holiday by “Fancy Friendship Day”, which essentially means the kids dress up in fancy clothes and celebrate having each other as friends. It’s pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

The only problem, for us at least, is that Owen doesn’t have fancy clothes. The kid wears jeans and t-shirts every day. He’s comfortable. He usually comes home covered in paint anyway. I shop mostly at the consignment store. He is all boy. And, even if he was a girl, I think my philosophy would be generally the same (though, man, I saw some of the cutest little dresses ever the other day while I was shopping and I got a little giddy imagining if Baby #2 will ever wear them).

So, last night, in the final hour, I had just enough time to run to Target to see if I could find any accessories that could transform something in Owen’s wardrobe into something appropriate for Fancy Day. My heart just about melted when I saw this blazer. And, though the shelves were almost bare, this bowtie. Sold.

Oh, and to top off the specialness of this sweet holiday, I let Owen have half of a marshmallow Peep heart (one of my favorite [disgusting] holiday indulgences and also gluten free!), and made his lunch a little special too (heart-shaped polenta with feta cheese, heart-shaped cucumbers, red peppers and no-fake-stuff-added-hot dog).

Happy Fancy Friendship Day, friends. Tell your friends and family how much you love them, today and every day.

She Says… Long Days & Report Cards

The last few days have been long. In retrospect, I think Owen was dealing with an ear infection that flew under the radar, but at the time all I saw was aggressive behavior at home and at school, general fussiness and a lot of “NO!”. I even attempted to institute our first (second?) “real” time-out after he threw a little stool in anger, a la 1-2-3 Magic. I say attempted because although in the end he did sit for a few seconds, it was preceded by a lot of laughing in my face and trying to escape and overall not really understanding why he was sitting on the stairs. There’s work to be done there, but that’s a whole different post.

Amidst the rough behavior, he’s been rocking the underwear at home (both over the weekend and every night when he gets home from school), so I think this actually may stick.

And speaking of school, it’s report card time again! Ok, ok, Developmental Report. It’s not grading him on how smart he is, but rather placing him on a continuum from “Accomplished” to “Requires Support” on a variety of different skills. I am always so intrigued to get these reports from his school because they are very detailed, and they help give me a sense of how he is developing in comparison to his peers (since he’s my only kid so far, I really have nothing to compare him to except himself). And, although every parent would like their child to be perfect in every area, I’m also interested to see which skills he is lagging behind on so I can keep an eye out for ways to practice them at home.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The 2-3 year old set is evaluated on skills like:
- Attempts new skills with confidence
- Expresses and regulates a wide range of emotions in an age-appropriate manner
- Easily tolerates a variety of sensory stimuli
- Transitions smoothly between activities
- Seeks adult help when needed

Owen is all over the map in this area (as I imagine many 2 year olds would be). Though he is “accomplished” in a lot of areas, he still needs quite a bit of help comforting himself when he is upset and controlling his own frustrations in a non-aggressive way (see above with the stool throwing incident!).

SOCIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
- Cooperating with adults
- Engaging in parallel play
- Engaging in cooperative play (taking turns, sharing toys)
- Shows concern & sympathy for others
- Actively participates in circle time, small & large group activities

Owen has been a super social kid since the day he was born, and that hasn’t changed much. He’s very outgoing and from what his teachers tell me, he’s always anxious to yell out answers and participate in activities. He knows everyone at school by name, and even knows many of his friends’ parents’ names too. He still has a ways to go with following group expectations like taking turns and listening when others are talking, but I’m going to guess most of those issues come from being an only child and coming from a long line of attention hogs/loudmouths.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
- Able to follow simple, multi-step directions
- Able to focus for an age-appropriate amount of time on a chosen activity
- Able to sort and match objects based on different criteria
- Familiar with basic shapes, colors and letters
- Able to count to 10
- Remembers where objects belong

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
- Communicates effectively with age-appropriate vocabulary
- Expresses self in simple, intelligible phrases
- Is able to form sentences
- Is able to answer questions when asked

These skills are where Owen really excels. His teachers noted that he loves to engage any adult (or peer) in conversation and loves to tell stories. Future actor? Comedian? Who knows, but I know the kid loves to talk!

SELF HELP SKILLS
- Demonstrates independence during meals and snack (hand washing, disposing of trash, etc.)
- Able to remove clothing/attempts to put clothing on
- Assists in clean up time
- Cooperates in diaper/potty usage

This was an area where Owen was marked as “progressing” for many skills on his last progress report. It was definitely helpful to hear this, as it reminded me to ask him to do some of these things himself rather than doing them for him when he was 18 months – 2 years. Now he’s quite good at taking off/putting on his coat and hat (recently mastered “the flip trick” and now wants to show anyone who will watch him put his coat on), and last night he even demonstrated he could do pants too. Progress!

FINE MOTOR SKILLS
- Uses markers & crayons appropriately
- Builds vertically & horizontally
- Build tower of 6-9 blocks
- Strings beads

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
- Displays coordinated movements of body
- Jumps in place with two feet leaving the ground
- Jumps forwards & backwards
- Stands on tiptoes
- Can balance on one foot

The gross motor skills always make me chuckle — how would I know if he can balance on one foot?! Definitely one of those times I’m so thankful that he has so many awesome caretakers who are tracking his development and challenging him in different ways. Apparently he’s doing great on all of these skills except jumping backwards. That’s not a life skill I’m very worried about

—

I post these not because most of you really care how Owen scores on these individual skills, but because I find the lists of what this age group “should” be doing really interesting. If he wasn’t at this particular daycare, I wouldn’t have any clue about asking him to try some of these things, so I thought I’d share!

She Says… New Plan

Want to know what I learned yesterday? Something that all of you who have attempted potty training already know. It is an intensely personal process (for the parents and the kids). Everyone responds differently to the various techniques that exist (the parents and the kids). It is such a huge, new step that we’re all just figuring it out as we go (the parents and the kids).

Your comments and emails yesterday really helped me see that every kid takes a different road to being potty trained. Owen is very advanced in the process in a lot of ways (especially for a boy) and giving him space to make this decision on his own seems to be the right option for him right now (not a 3-day “underwear or bust” method, not putting him on the potty when he doesn’t have to go just to “try”, not forcing him to have accidents at school so he learns his lesson).

Although I told Owen on Monday “once you choose underwear, you have to stick with underwear”, the signs he gave me yesterday at school were pretty darn clear that he wasn’t quite ready to “choose underwear” at school, even if he can do it brilliantly at home. And although my gut reaction was something along the lines of, “Well, he’ll have to figure it out at some point. Maybe if he just works through this he will get it. I think I should stand behind my words that he has to stay in underwear”, I quickly changed my tune after his teachers and I spoke for the third and fourth time yesterday and Owen still wouldn’t pee on the potty at school.

It just didn’t feel right.

It was Owen’s decision to start this process (earlier than I expected!), and it just didn’t feel right for me to be forcing it on him at school if he just didn’t want to. I’m so glad we tried it, because otherwise we wouldn’t have known… but his teachers and I decided (as a team) that it was best to put him back in diapers and work on using the potty at school without the unnecessary stress and pressure that underwear seemed to bring. I know some people said it sounded like the school “sabotaged” my efforts, or that they were “sorry my daycare didn’t support potty training”. I don’t feel that way at all. I feel that Owen’s teachers supported him 100% throughout this big transition and listened carefully to his response. They could see, just as I could see, that pushing the underwear issue was causing him real stress, and maybe the time just wasn’t quite right.

So, our new plan is to keep the underwear momentum going at home. It’s working wonderfully and Owen’s confidence and excitement about wearing underwear like a big boy is growing by the day (even yesterday when he came home from school after the underwear snafoo, he was so excited to put on his underwear and pee in the potty before bed). And we’re going to keep diapers at school. His teachers will continue to ask him if he would like to use the potty, and they even have him playing some “potty games” like tossing goldfish in and flushing them down, to get him more comfortable around the potty at school. I know this “blended” approach goes against a lot of what I read on the internet (three day methods, saying “goodbye” to diapers and never looking back, etc.), but this just feel right for us for right now. We’ll see how it goes! I’m certain that the more Owen uses the potty in different places and with different people, and the more his friends start using the potty, the more he’ll be ok with it at school. I’m more worried about adding unneeded pressure and stress than I am that he will never learn to pee at school. I know he will learn to pee at school. In time.

And while I truly used to think those all-or-nothing approaches made total sense, I guess you don’t really know until you try it with your own kid!

She Says… Potty Progress

I’ll give you a full rundown of the Hansel & Gretel puppet show tomorrow, but today I have something more pressing to write about.

Potty Progress.

Remember a few months ago when we sort of pseudo-tried potty training because Owen was really interested in it and I didn’t want to miss the boat? Yeah, that didn’t really stick so much. Long story short, he wouldn’t pee at school (even though he went without much encouragement at home, at restaurants, etc.), so after an awesome weekend of “getting” the process, we decided it wasn’t really the right time. He was so young that I didn’t want to push it, so we just said, “Ok, no big deal, we’ll try again later.”

Well, later happened on Sunday afternoon. We were at Target and happened to stroll past the underwear section. We’ve been talking off and on about “whenever you are ready to go in the potty all the time, you can pick out awesome underwear! Like Spiderman or trains or cars!”. He doesn’t even know who Spiderman is, but he has a Spiderman t-shirt and knows that he is SO COOL, whoever he is, so for some reason that was a huge motivator. So Owen caught sight of some Spiderman underwear and nearly lost his shit.

“SPIDERMAN UNNNNDERWEARRRRR! I WANT THEM! I WANT TO WEAR THEM NOW!”. I reminded him that wearing underwear means you have to go peepee and poop in the potty all the time, and was he ready for that? Really? He insisted that he was, and who am I to say no to a kid begging to be potty trained? So… we got the underwear (except once we got in the checkout line he had a change of heart and “didn’t like the spider on the Spiderman underwear and really REALLY wanted Thomas”, so we went back and switched them out for a pack of Thomas the Train undies).

I die. Little boy underwear are just about the cutest darn thing on the face of the planet.

Before I had even put away the Target haul, Owen was pulling his pants off, so anxious to put his new underwear on. A few minutes after putting them on he had one little accident, but he stopped himself from peeing as soon as he realized, and finished in the potty. After that, he wore underwear for the rest of the night and all day Monday without a single accident. We even went to music class and to the dentist, which is a 30 minute drive away!

He did AWESOME. Far beyond my expectations. Heck, I had no expectations. I really thought we were not going to touch potty training for real until closer to 3! He is SO PROUD of himself and has been showing his underwear off to everyone. He even pooped in the potty with very little cajoling on my part (he asked for a diaper a few times, but I gently reminded him that once he chooses underwear we have to stick with underwear, and he ended up pooping in a little training potty since he felt more comfortable than on the big potty).

Since peeing at school had been our barrier last time, I started talking up how exciting it was going to be to go peepee at school and show his teachers his new underwear. He acted all cool, like it was no big deal. When I dropped him off this morning we talked a lot with his teacher about what we do, and I offered to help him go pee at school the first time so he could see it was just like going at home. He said no, and I thought, “Wow, well, I guess he’s just going to do it on his own!”.

Ummm, maybe not. I just got a call from school an hour ago. His teacher said he was screaming and crying and wouldn’t go potty anywhere. Not in his underwear. Not on the potty. But he clearly had to go. Oh boy.

I am working from home today (thankfully!), so I ran out the door to see if I could help get him over the hump. My whole potty training approach has been “no stress, no tears”. If he’s ready, he’s ready. If he’s not, he’s not. This shouldn’t be a battle. But I almost cried looking into his tearful eyes when he said, “I don’t feel good, Mommy. I want to go home with you. I don’t HAVE to go peepee.”

I was so proud of him for not going in his underwear. He wasn’t even asking for a diaper; he just wanted to go HOME to pee. I closed the bathroom door so it was just the two of us, talked him off the ledge, and after a minute he let me put him on the potty. As soon as he sat down he peed a TON. I think part of the issue was the different potty seat at school (he goes on the regular potty at home, but at school they had a padded seat on top of the big potty seat), and part of it was definitely that I wasn’t there to keep him calm.

I don’t know if going to school to save him was the right thing to do, but I don’t care. This is a huge transition and we’re figuring it out as go. I’m hoping that now that he has gone once at school that he will not have trouble going again. I showed his teacher how he likes to sit on the potty and told him that they can help him just like Mommy and Daddy.

So, now my question is to all of you. I know this withholding is normal, but I don’t want it to turn into a big “thing”. Did your kid ever refuse to go potty at school (or grandma’s house, or somewhere he/she needed to go a lot)? What did you do? Any tips from teachers or other caretakers who have been through this process before?

Side note: We’re sticking to diapers for naps and bedtime since I don’t want him to be stressed about sleeping, and because he’s still in a crib (like I said, I didn’t know this transition was going to happen so soon!). It hasn’t been a big deal so far to use diapers for those times and then put underwear on as soon as he wakes up. I’m totally ok with him using his naptime diaper as a crutch at school until he gets over the hump of learning how to pee there. He gets M&Ms as an incentive at home when he goes in the potty, and a sticker chart at school (they don’t allow candy, which I love). The underwear itself has been the biggest motivator by far. I’d rather not venture into pull-ups, since I think the mental shift to underwear is the main part of this development. Does this make sense? Anything I’m missing that could make this school peeing smoother? It seems to be the only big bump in our potty training road so far.

She Says… Sticker Chart to the Rescue

It’s no secret that Owen has some issues with using gentle hands (even when it comes from a place of love… remember his issues with over-hugging here and here?). Mostly with his friends at school, but Benjamin, Schnitzel and I are not immune to it at home either. Nothing out of the ordinary for a two year old, but I knew even when he was in the womb that he was going to be a very active kid. A very physical kid. A motor-driven, kinesthetic learner. He is also sweet and gentle and hilarious and silly and insanely smart and emotionally intelligent… it’s part of the whole package, so I’ll take it. Sometimes I think he just forgets that kicking and smacking and pushing are NOT OK.

The past few weeks have been riddled with stories from daycare that Owen had to be reminded to use gentle hands with his friends (and one teacher). On Wednesday we even had to sign an official “incident report” because Owen hit a friend across the face with a toy he had just grabbed from him and it really hurt him. Oy. I’ve discussed each situation with the teachers and they don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary, Owen is just a rough kid who doesn’t realize his own strength and who is still working on communicating emotions with words rather than actions. He is beginning to understand the cause-and-effect of hitting a friend = tears = teacher comforting the other friend = it was his fault and he should make sure the friend is ok. Sort of. It’s beginning to sink in.

The past few weeks have also been riddled with illness and ear infections and schedule changes and holidays and too much family and not enough sleep… and I know from experience that these outbursts usually happen when Owen’s own body is in pain. So I get where it’s coming from. Sort of. I’m trying to get where it’s coming from.

The last few days I’ve tried a “reminder” system. We “remind” Owen at drop-off in the morning that we really want to hear a good report from his teacher that he used gentle hands all day, with everyone. It has had spotty results. (Read: relatively ineffective, despite the enthusiastic nodding we get from Owen in the morning).

So today we’re instituting something new. A sticker chart.

http://www.stickersandcharts.com

If I had enough free time I would create you a cutesy printable, but I’m at work today scrambling to catch up from the holidays, so I did a quick Google and found some pretty cute, free, downloadable ones at stickersandcharts.com. I printed the smiley one and the dinosaur one and I’m going to let Owen choose which one he’d like to be his “Gentle Hands Chart”.

Let’s see if this does the trick. He seemed pretty excited about the idea this morning, so we’ll see if a sticker is incentive enough to keep him from manhandling/accosting his classmates and teachers.

Have sticker charts worked for you/your kid(s) in the past? What else works as incentive? Any tips for instituting this?

She Says… Two Words for You

STOMACH. BUG.

Owen has been complaining of his stomach hurting for the last few days. But he was eating fine, had no fever, and was acting only slightly irritated by it. There wasn’t much for me to do other than watch and wait. Then two days ago he said it hurt when he peed. I called the doctor and discussed it with them, and together we decided to continue watching and waiting, not knowing if the two things were connected. In the absence of other symptoms, a kid with a stomachache isn’t really treatable (especially a kid with known food reactions — we thought for a few days this was a possible reaction to gluten that he was figuring out how to put into words, even though we had no idea where said gluten would have come from).

Long story short, the puking started today at school, and I dropped my pile of pre-Christmas work (and oh, there was a lot of it) and dashed out the door. When I arrived at school he was a puddle of pukey hair, tears, and floppy body curled up in his teacher’s lap.

Those of you who have read this blog since the beginning know that Owen gets sick a lot, but he almost NEVER acts sick. He’s generally so happy that I can barely convince the doctor’s how sick he is. Today was the total opposite. Poor kid was wiped and just kept whining, “It hurts!” while doubled over clutching his stomach.

I took him home and we spent the rest of the morning wrapped up in blankets on the couch watching tv. He was so amazed I was letting him watch tv and play games on my phone — I’ve never made exceptions to that rule before. But there’s a first time for everything, and his sad eyes were killing me.

He’s sleeping now and I’m going to count us SUPER lucky if that one big puke was all this bug was. Fingers are crossed, and an appointment with the doc is booked in a few hours.

NOT the way I wanted to start my Christmas break, but a Mama’s gotta do what a Mama’s gotta do.