A Master Sock Folder!

One of my favorite parenting sayings is, Don’t get to stressed over any phase because it will be replaced by an equally maddening one! This is true for the challenging phases, but it’s also true for the good phases. And I’ve learned that there are so many wonderful good phases!

Right now, my son Tyler (age five) is in the sock-folding phase. He loves folding socks, and there’s never a shortage of socks to fold in this house! I try to wash one load of laundry each day to keep on top of the pile, and I fold the laundry after my sons go to bed. Our laundry room (closet really) is upstairs, outside my sons’ rooms, so I generally have company while folding the laundry. The past few days, Tyler has asked if I have any socks to fold and he cheerfully folds them all up. Then he proudly counts how many pairs he folded and yells the number down to his dad. What a fun phase this is!

My Sanity Saver!

I’m very fortunate to have a wonderful husband I love and a terrific job that I love. In addition to those things, one simple tip has been invaluable for saving my sanity these past five years as a mom: I hire a high school-aged babysitter for just two hours once a month! I pay her $20 if she can find her own way here. While she’s here, I usually scrapbook, two precious hours to do something I really love and enjoy. If I’m in a pinch, I’ll work for those two hours. And sometimes I take a quick walk. But generally it’s just a joy to catch up on scrapbooking the photos of the people I love!

An Expert’s Advice

I’m very fortunate that my husband and I are on the same parenting page a good 87 percent of the time. Yes, we make our boys clear the table after supper. No, we don’t make them “clean their plates” at supper. Yes, our boys can earn money by doing special things for others or things around the house. No, we don’t pay them allowances.

On two pretty big issues though, we were divided: Sleeping and spanking. When our boys were babies, they didn’t sleep well, and my husband and I had a hard time agreeing on how much, and when, to let them cry. On spanking, my husband was ok with spanking when necessary; I was not.

Rather than going round and round on these two issues, in both cases, we sought out experts for advice. And both times, before talking with those experts, my husband and I both agreed that we would put our trust and faith in those experts, and what they said, we would do.

For sleep, we found a terrific sleep clinic, Millpond. It’s in England, and they worked with us by phone and email. Our wonderful counselor put us onto a schedule and a controlled crying program, and while her advice was sometimes hard, it worked.

For spanking, my husband and I went to a session on Smart Discipline at our church when our son Tyler (now five) was one. We agreed that we would ask Larry Koenig, a respected expert, what he thought about spanking. I was actually surprised by what he said, but I respect him so much that I was ok with following his advice.

This strategy of looking to an expert for advice has served Mike and me well, and I won’t hesitate to do it again in the future!

Disney Hits a Home Run!

I’m always on the lookout for healthy foods that my family will eat. I am also a huge Disney fan–and future Disney Vacation Club member!

A few weeks ago, I was at the grocery store, and I spotted Mickey Mouse’s smiling face on a packet. Aha! I thought. I pulled down the packet to see they’re called “fruit crisps.” Uhoh, I thought. They’re probably loaded with sugar.

To my delight when I turned over the package, I discovered there’s no sugar at all! The only ingredient is freeze-dried apples. When I gave them to my son Austin (age three), who is also a huge Mickey Mouse fan, he loved them! And not just a little bit. He ate three packets, each containing 1 1/2 apples, in one sitting!

The Fruit Crisps must be very popular because our grocery store can’t keep them in stock. I ordered a case of 24 single-serving packets on amazon.com. When the box came today, Austin was thrilled. He’s already eaten one packet, and so have I. Way to go Disney!

Keep ‘em Busy!

Today has been quite a day. Like most mornings, I tossed a load of laundry into the machine after taking a shower and before beginning work. I didn’t give it a second though until my husband came home from dropping Tyler (age five) off at kindergarten.

“Quick, turn off the washer” my normally calm husband yelled!

By some miracle, he had come in the front door, instead of the back. That’s how he spotted soap suds spilling out of the pipe vent in our front yard. Uh-oh, that can’t be good.

Several hours and several hundred dollars later, we found out the sewer line had been blocked. But here’s the point of this story: Our sons Tyler and Austin (age three), were fabulous the entire time, even though Mike and I were quite distracted. I think the secret was instead of trying to push the boys aside, we welcomed them into this adventure. We invited them out to watch the plumber work, and we kept them busy going for flashlights and turning sinks on and off as the plumber requested.

As the plumber was packing up to leave, Tyler asked me if he could give the plumber some treats for his hard work. Absolutely, I said, and Tyler filled a ziploc bag with Reese’s peanut butter cups, Milk Duds, and Hershey’s bars, all from Tyler’s Halloween stash. The kind plumber was grateful, and quite surprised!

Smart Discipline

For the first years of my sons’ lives, my main discipline strategy was time-outs. They worked well. When my sons misbehaved, they sat for the number of minutes they were old on a white wooden bench inside our front door. They don’t like to sit still, and so time-outs were very effective.

Then one day a few weeks ago, I told one son he was going to time-out. “No, I’m not,” he calmly stated. Uh-oh.

I looked at him and realized there’s not really much I can do at this point. I can’t carry him, plop him onto the bench, hold him down, and make him take a time-out. At that moment, I knew I had to up my game. We had been starting to see some attitude problems, with talking back and defiance, and so it was time for a change.

And so I asked my husband if he was ok with starting a discipline program we learned about when Tyler (now five) was only one year old: Smart Discipline. The program was developed by Larry Koenig, and we adjusted it a bit for our family. My husband and I sat down and wrote five simple rules for our family:

• We do what we’re asked to the first time.
• We keep our hands to ourselves.
• We speak kindly and politely.
• We treat our toys and books with care.
• We do our chores without argument 

Then we came up with three consequences–three privileges that our sons would miss if they were taken away:

• Lose your nightly TV show pick
• Lose your nightly small candy/cookie snack
• Lose your opportunity to play quietly in  your room before bed and go straight to bed after bath

I made up a chart for each boy with three stars and these three privileges. When our sons break a rule, without advance warning, we cross off a star. Break another rule, lose another star. Break a third rule, lose a third star. Then when they break a rule, they start losing privileges.

As an extra incentive to do well, we added in a rule that if the boys go an entire week without losing privileges (even if they’ve lost stars), they get a dollar.

It took about a week for us all to get used to this new system. But now I’ve seen a dramatic increase in behavior. It really is smart discipline!

Enter to Win a Miracle Blanket!

Exciting news! I have the wonderful opportunity to give away one of my all-time favorite baby products! I discovered Miracle Blanket when my son Austin was a baby. It truly was a miracle; a swaddler he loved and couldn’t Houdini out of.

To enter to win a free Miracle Blanket, now through midnight CST on Monday, November 8th, email me at jenniferreich@mommymdguides.com or “comment” to this post with your name, mailing address, email address, and Miracle Blanket color choice (solid sky blue, solid natural beige, solid pink, white with pink trim, white with blue trim, yellow with aqua trim, green with blue trim, pink camouflage, or blue camouflage).

Also please favorite Miracle Blanket on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/MiracleBlanket and http://www.facebook.com/MiracleBlanket.

Tuesday morning, my son Austin will pick a winner out of a hat from the entries I receive. The winner’s name will be announced on Miracle Blanket’s Twitter page and Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon after 2pm CST. The winner will have 24 hours to respond to them to “claim” the prize–a free Miracle Blanket!

Get the Ice!

One of the many many things I love about my job is the chance to meet and talk with doctors. I would have loved to become a doctor, but even the thought of blood makes me weak in the knees.

And so you can imagine that when my two very active little boys get hurt, especially if there’s blood involved, I tend to panic. My husband is a firefighter, and not much makes him excited or alarmed. So when our boys had their first bumps and bruises, my husband wasn’t impressed by my propensity to panic. I made the boys more upset by getting upset myself, and I had to find a way to get it under control.

I found a great solution! When someone has a bump or cut, my husband runs to them, and I run the other way–to the refrigerator to get ice. “I’ll get the ice” I yell on the way! This way, my husband has some time to figure out what’s going on, and I have some time to take a few deep breaths.