Weary Mom finds good advice

Caleb my sweet boy has challenged me since birth. From 3 weeks old when he starting crying all day long until he was about 3 months old, I was weary. Probably from 3 months until 15 months I was challenged because I had no clue what I was doing, but I really enjoyed his personality. Then we took the pacifier away and it seemed like over night his personality totally changed. He really lost all ability to pull it together after he got upset. For the most part the most difficult time is right after he wakes up and he is just mad at the world, but here recently we have started down a new road of disrespect. He uses tones that are disrespectful toward me and most recently has started disrespecting his friends. ie: tonight he got pulled out of childcare at church for hitting and pushing. I am sad, frustrated and overwhelmed by this parenting thing. I feel like I have great info, and I am applying it, but just when I think we are going to be on an easier road, the bumps increase 10 fold. I love him so much and I think that is way it grieves me to have such a hard time finding joy in parenting him. There are moments that I absolutely love like when he folds his little hands into praying position and says with the sweetest voice, Please mom, Please. It really is hard for me to say no to whatever he is requesting. But I feel like these times are few and far between and I am growing weary. I found this on the Internet tonight and tomorrow we are making a rules board. Praying that we will have some heart change around here. I know the Lord is using this to refine me and for that I am grateful, but man this is hard.

Good Advice

It has now been over a month since we finally visited the Dr. regarding behavior issues .... Dr. scheduled an appointment during his lunch hour so that he could evaluate. He through an unholy fit right there in the Dr. (he was not in the room so I did not think anything was going on, but he was taking note to what triggered him and note to how we went about discipline to him.) He came into the room finally after being in their for about an hour and then told us that when you say what we said about him being extremely stubborn and punishment not working (all the above mentioned previously.) that people you tell don't really know because they have not seen on hand that this is NOT a NORMAL behavior for a 3 three year old. He said that some children are just extremely STRONG WILLED and that is what Dylan is (said you don't know what one is until you have one). On a normal child the discipline we used would work. He gave me an excellent book to read and a behavior punishment and reward program to go by ... thought I would share to help any other parents out their that is in our shoes. Simple make a set of family rules ... post it on a poster board (he said even though he cannot read that it still would help.) along with a paddle, wooden spoon, belt (your choice) ... make him understand that these are our rules and if they are broken then he gets read the rule he broke from the rules board, goes to the timeout room (his bedroom is now just a bed and chest, all toys were moved to a playroom along with his dresser, so that he would not stand on top and jump.) and gets a SPANKING with the wooden spoon hanging above our rules (our choice) Dr. showed us how to spank our child on his own leg ...if interested ... said you spank one hard time right where the crack of the leg and bottom meet), the shut the door (which is now locked from the outside and we put his baby camera back in there to see what he is doing) after he is through with his tantrum then we go in there and give him a hug, tell him that we love him, and that we do not do what ever the rule was that he did wrong and ask him to say sorry if he hurt someone. Now if he is good for a period of time (not all day long - impossible for any three year old) he gets a prize out of the good jar, which is filled with stickers, matchbox cars, and other small toys and candy. ... This seems to be working great, he still has days, but would more less say any three year old does we just had to have an action plan that everyone was on and does the same thing. Don't get me wrong it did not happen over night, like the doctor said the first day will be the hardest could be about 50 times and then the 2nd day less and so on and so on. Now he knows that we mean what we say or he is going to have to pay the consequence for breaking rules. Sometimes we will remind him of a rule if it is not a big deal and ask him to stop or he will have to go to the timeout spot and usually straightens right up. The down fall of all this is we have a daughter who we can just usually threaten and she straightens up.... Dr. said does not matter, everyone has to be on the same discipline plan. If we go off we carry a set of our family rules and if he acts up then everyone else gets to stay and have fun and he will be taken out of the restaurant or where ever with either mommy or daddy and the car seat turns into the time out room until he has straightened up and then he gets to come back inside ... we have only had to do this one time and he did not like the fact that everyone else got to eat dinner inside the restaurant and daddy and him ate dinner in the car. (he did get to come in and eat dessert inside because he did straighten up). Also not sure if I mentioned make sure everyone calls the rule broke the same thing and in simple toddler terms. (No, hitting)

I obey your laws & rules for all my ways are known to you PSALM 119:168.

Beauty and the Wil'DaBeast Party

The Birthday party was so much fun. I really can't image it could have gone any better, but that is thanks to my wonderful in-laws, my amazing hubby, all of our amazing friends and Mr. Mike who saved the day from a miserable rain out.

I decide to do a Beauty and the Beast party because it is Caleb's favorite Disney story, I thought it would be a perfect way to do a boy, girl party and I thought it would be easy to find everything needed for a themed birthday party. Finding the Merchandise posed a real challenge. There are no longer any items that have the Beast. Everything Belle related is total Princess, so what was supposed to be easy turned into a nightmare. There was literally only one item in all of the Disney merchandise that even remotely incorporated the Beast. This was a 7 piece set of figurines that included all the characters from Beauty and the Beast and thank goodness for that or my sweet little boy who only cares about the Beast would have been very disappointed. While we were at Disney World he watched the play at the Disney's Hollywood Studio (MGM) and every time the Beast would leave the stage he would say, "where'd the Wildabeast go?" He got a little confused, because the day before MGM, we spent the day at Animal Kingdom where there are real wildebeests. But needless to say he is a huge fan of the big scary Beast. So after much searching brain storming I came up with some fun activities, which didn't require merchandise and I could make on my own. Easy right. Not so much.

The Craft




I love scrapbooking and with our pending move I thought it would be fun to have each kid make their own scrapbook page so we could have a special memory and I would take pictures at the party to put in the scrapbook. I turned this into a chore because it really was a craft way over their head, so coming up with something that 3 year olds could do and would still look pretty took some major effort on my part. I cut all the items up and prebagged, so it would be easy but this process took me some time. It did however, turn out great. I especially loved the one done by Jay and Jack. It definitely had a masculine twist.

Story time



Our friend David read the story and put his own entertaining twist on it. The kids loved it and the adults had a number of good laughs. I purchased personalized Beauty and the Beast books from Disney that incorporated the child into the story as the party favor. I was really excited about these.

The Rose Petal Hunt



I found this fun game on the Internet and I thought it would be a great way to incorporate the rose from the story. I put stickers on 12 of the petals and scattered them around the room. There was enough for each child to find one. Once they found their sticker they were allowed to claim a prize out of the goody bag, with princess stuff for the girls and a random arrangement of toys for the boys Caleb picked out. I would say the harmonica was a hit.

The Beast Foot race



This one had me worried. I figured it would be either a blast or a disaster. For the most part all the kids did great and I was thankful there were no injuries. Only a few tears. Sweet Caleb got inches from the finish line and fell down and then had a meltdown and never completed the race. And Jack went home and told his mom, "don't make me where the fury feet."

Cory and I made these fun little beast feet out of cardboard and faux fur. I'm pretty sure I got high on the glue I used. The day after we worked on them all night I woke up with a splitting headache and a terrible case of nausea.

The Cake



I purchased the Cinderella cupcakes from walmart and had them leave off the Cinderella figurines and used the ones mentioned above. It was actually really tasty.

The Castle



This was a total hit, and I was very grateful. I found this fun website http://www.mrmcgroovys.com. He sells these rivots for cardboard and then gives you the plans to make just about anything you can image. The only thing that was a little misleading was the assembly time. He claimed the whole thing takes 2 hours to make. Maybe if you are a super builder. It took me 4 hours to cut it out. Then 4 more to paint. We had a great time as a family painting it.



Caleb was very helpful and he probably enjoyed painting it as much as playing in it. I probably spent 5 more hours going back and forth to the Conn's distribution center to get 8 refigerator boxes. In the end though the kids had a great time playing in the castle and it really made the party theme come to life. All the time and energy it took to put this thing together was worth every minute to see all the fun smiles on our precious kiddos faces.

Kiss on the Booty, Bump on the Chin

The Vannoy sister both had an eventful Saturday. For me it was extremely fun celebrating my sweet kiddos birthdays with a fun party, which I will post as soon as I get pictures organized.



My sweet sister on the other hand got to spend the day at the Emergency Room.

The story of what put them there was pretty fun so I decided I would blog for a great memory.

Attie is so affectionate and just adores her mom, so it does seem appropriate that this would be what put her in the hospital.

So here is the story as told by Attie to the Doctor.

Doctor- "What happen?"

Attie-"I was going to kiss mommy on the butt and I slipped and hit my chin."

Doctor-"that is a first."





She and Kaycee had just finished taking a shower and Attie was wrapped in a a towel so when she slipped she had no hands to catch herself.

Week in Colorado

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We had an amazing time. It was crazy with 9 adults and 5 kiddos in one house, but it was so much fun. Thank you Havertys for hosting such a fun filled weekend.

Shopping
We started out in typical Vannoy girl fashion with endless shopping. I think Caleb was feeling emasculated after three days of solid shopping. Each evening when we would get home he would rough Attie Jo up a little. Caleb's bulling followed by Attie tattle telling has historically been a regular thing with cousins who act like siblings, but this week they did so well together and for the most part enjoyed each others company a ton. Kaycee had an ingenious solution to the tattle telling which usually leads to more bulling. She made Attie go in timeout while Caleb was in timeout if she told on him for the physical encounter. It nipped the viscous cycle that can about drive two mommies crazy.

Lacrosse
We did enjoy a couple extremely physical lacrosse games. Played by none other than Clay Michael Haverty. It was very exciting and action packed. Caleb learned a few choice words from the crowd and when I asked him what his favorite part about lacrosse was he responded, "hit um, hit um hard."

Chelsea's shower





Kaycee is the Matron of Honor or "MOH" as we like to call her, so part of the event filled fun weekend was the bridal shower hosted for my sweet cousin who is getting married in June in Hawaii. Thanks Chels for the awesome excuse to go to Kauai. The shower was so fun and beautiful and we will always remember the cupcake debacle that actually ended up magnificently.



Other than a short moment of spiked estragen levels, which Chelsea quickly reeled us in from, we got away pretty tear free.



I still can't believe sweet little "Chel-see-a" is getting married. I still see her 7 years old running around the soccer field.

Easter
We started the day with a fun Easter basket tradition and Easter egg hunt.











Then headed off to an amazing church service.

Thank you Christ for conquering death and giving us Eternal Life.

After church we headed over to hang out with more family. We had so much fun over at the Merrit's house.




It was neat to watch Caleb play with the big boys. For about 4 hours he was entertained and forget I existed. Makaylee slept in the car for the first couple of hours, but woke up her typically friendly flirty fun self. We all enjoyed an amazing meal and lots of visiting, but the highlight of the event was our encouragment to Chip to lose his nasty bar stools. We wrote a fun little poem and our preformance brought many laughs.