More Richmond Pictures

This is me and Dylan in front of the White House of the Confederacy, where "President" Jefferson Davis lived.
Cool building...
Cool houses...
Can you tell I was having fun with the camera...

The clouds were really cool that day. This is a statue of GW.

The Capitol Building.
Building that looks a lot like a building on W&J's campus (W&J's campus also designed in Jeffersonian style).


Statue of Washington in the Capitol. The busts around the room are of the other 7 VA-born Presidents.

Rotunda that is only visible from inside...
List of VA-born Presidents:
Martin and Dylan in the House of Delegates room.
Governor's Mansion.

Part-time work

Saturday's Post had this article on part time working moms. One of the working mom list-serves that I belong to brought this article to my attention. I am exploring ways that I can be an advocate for part-time work (as opposed to full time work). As the article states, "A 2007 Pew Research Center report found that 60 percent of working mothers across all income and education levels said they would be happiest working part time, a jump of 12 percentage points since 1997. However, only 24 percent actually had part-time hours." After reading the stories from moms on the list serve about how they struggle to get their kids home from day care in enough time to feed them before they fall asleep and stay up late doing housework and have husbands who don't get home until 8pm when they aren't on travel, I'm more and more convinced that something needs to be done to help these women lead more relaxed lives and be able to spend more time with their kids as they desire. Many would choose part time if it was offered. I think the culture needs to change make part time work a more accepted option. Setting precedents and getting more women to work part time will enable employers to hire more of us. I'm so fortunate that I've been able to work part time in the government and I hope that I can help other women come up with part time arrangements with their employers.

This is amazing...

I got this in an email forward. I thought it was pretty amazing the way this little girl sang all these notes in this song (maybe not on key) and sang it so slowly and with such fervor and dramatic pauses. Anyway, enjoy!

Follow up thoughts on training children

To clarify some points from my earlier post....

I think what I was getting at in the post was the extent (amount) to which we should train children and the scope (types of things) of the training. I'm assuming that we should train and children should obey their parents. I'm still wondering about the things I'm asking Dylan to obey and whether or not they are reasonable or right. Once I decide to tell Dylan he needs to do something it then becomes an issue of obedience but my thinking originally was more about the earlier step in deciding what I'm asking him to do.

With regard to expectations, my comment that I think we expect too much from kids is that we expect too much of them without training. You can't expect a child to do something you want him or her to do if you haven't taught them what it means to do what you are asking. A baby can't be expected to be put in a crib and fall asleep by himself without training, or a toddler who has never been asked to be quiet and usually gets lots of praise when she says things because she's learning how to talk can't be expected to all of the sudden be quiet when you take them to into a museum. And I think some parents too often assume that the training will work faster than it does or think if you tell a kid three days earlier not to touch something that they can remember that and won't touch it again without having to be told again.

However, I think I have just realized that I was erring too much on the side of thinking that training takes longer than we think, at least the negative training (as opposed to positive reinforcement when they do something good). You know, I was just being too darn patient...:) At some point you have to say this isn't working and we have to try something else. That is where I am at right now. So, just like when I was pregnant or right after Dylan was born and I had an issue I felt like I needed to resolve, I am researching and talking to other parents and pretty much obsessing over this right now. Ah, it feels good. I felt like I haven't had anything to obsess over in a while. Maybe if I could just think about things (especially child rearing strategies) more continually then I wouldn't have these obsessive times. I think my problem is that I think - there is a problem, I need to fix it, let me analyze the heck out it and fix it so I can forget about it. [My husband would tell you that I'm not like that at all because he often sees me make a decision and continually question it and stress over the negatives of the decision that was made (even though those negatives outweighed the positive). I would agree with him that I'm like that as well. Not sure how to reconcile those two except to say that I'm a complex woman and I respond differently depending on the situation but I can't define what makes me respond differently at the moment and this post has gone really off topic so I'm going to stop now.]

Children's Museum of Richmond

The Saturday before last we went to Richmond for a day trip vacation. The first stop was the Childrens' Museum of Richmond, or the closest thing to heaven for Dylan. This place is great! Lots of things to explore and climb and play with. Here's Dylan in one of his favorite things - a car!


We helped Dylan climb up the jungle gym.

Daddy had fun at the museum too...
Playing with water is fun!

Waiting for Daddy...

I had to stand back a little to get this picture because I knew as soon as Dylan saw me with the camera...

He would come over and want his picture taken...

Training children

So I'm soliciting opinions on something I've been thinking about lately. The topic is training children in such things as sitting still (Catherine, your recent milestone there with Hannah got me thinking more about this) and not destroying something that other (older) kids have made while playing on the floor and can range to such things as potty training. I see two schools of thought - 1, you can't possibly expect a child of x age to be able to do y (ex. not knock down something that his older sibling has made) so don't even try to correct that behavior because as someone at a party said to me when I was trying to tell Dylan to stop messing up this puzzle I was helping and another child with, "you're expecting him to not act his age" - 2, kids should learn right from wrong as early as possible and children learn by repetition so you need to start earlier than later. And for things like potty training or signing, what does it hurt if you start early (as long as you are willing to deal with the frustration until they are "ready.") I think what complicates this is that, as we hear so often, kids are so different developmentally and so it's hard to tell someone or may be looking for answers to this question when their child is "ready" to be potty trained or sit still, etc. Obviously there's no easy answer to this and it depends a lot on the specific instance (potty training is a lot different than teaching a kid not to touch something hot) but I'm wondering if you all have any insights as you have thought about this issue.

To the grandmother who told me that I was expecting Dylan to not act his age, I wish I would have said "I don't expect him to obey at this point, but I still want him to ingrain in him what is acceptable behavior." I'm not sure the grandmother would have disagreed with me. I think her point might have been, which I totally agree with, is that too often parents get frustrated when kids don't do what they are told even after many repetitions, not realizing that kids just aren't wired like us to be able to do that. It takes much training and much repetition (and a certain unknown age?) until a child will behave. That frustration can lead to things like abuse if taken to the extreme but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep telling our kids that something is wrong even if they don't understand it yet.

Oh, we have....

In response to Catherine's comment on my last post, we have begun putting food in our hair as shown below.

Aftermath of first attempt at eating by himself with a spoon

Oh boy, she's got the camera again.

See what a mess I can make!

Wait, one more thing, let me tell you....

Oh no you don't....no more pictures or I'll start crying...

What have I done....

Haircut by Mommy

I decided that after Dylan's first haircut I would cut his hair to save money. Well, I know why we pay professionals to do these things. Dylan's hair came out pretty choppy and uneven. The pictures do not do justice to the horrible job I did. There's a big chuck of hair completely missing above his left ear. I'm not upset about it though. But I am considering taking him to Hair Cuttery next time. Not so much because of the way it looks but because of how hard it was for me to get him to be still long enough to do it. I actually had to finish the one side another day.

Drive down Skyline Drive

A few weekends ago we actually had a free Saturday and we were going to go to Richmond. Dylan was sick with a fever so we didn't go (but we did get to go Richmond last weekend, pics coming soon) but instead we took a drive down Skyline Drive. It was actually a good activity to do with Dylan when he was sick. He slept in the car on the way there and the way back and he sat still for a number of hours, which he would never do at home even when he' sick but which I think he needs to do to rest up and get better.

I think I got some great pics with the new camera but they don't do the scenes justice. It was a clear cold day. We did about 30 miles of the Drive. Maybe we'll do some more this and actually get out an hike then. Martin and I love mountains.

As you can tell from the last picture, Dylan wasn't feeling well - we didn't even get him out of the car. That's a neat picture where you can see the mountains through the sun visor but not out the rest of the window.

A new word and a new sign

Yesterday I figured out that Dylan has a word for cheese. It sounds a little like his word for shoes. Dylan went to the refridgerator as I was getting something out and grabbed the cheese and said "jeezzz." He would eat cheese all day if we let him.

The three of us went for a walk yesterday and heard some birds chirping. Dylan tapped his pointer finger to his thumb which is close to the sign for bird (you're supposed to do it right by your mouth). So that counts.

Still, the word that comes out of Dylan's mouth the most is "car." Followed closely by "bussssss."

Hanging out at home

Just some fun pics...

Friends' visit

Nancy and her husband and three kids came from the other side of the beltway to visit us in January. We try to get together every 2 or 3 months but it always ends up being a longer time between visits than we like. I was amazed at Nancy's stories of venturing out of the house by herself with 3 kids. I guess when you ease into it (1, then 2, then 3 kids) it's not as overwhelming but I just think of the production it is to get me and Dylan out of the house just to go get the oil changed in the car (our plans for today) and I have a hard time imagining how I could do that will two more kids.

It's fun now that Dylan can actually play with other kids so he has fun too when we hang out with our friends who have kids. And Nancy's girls had a good time too. I don't think they wanted to leave. And Amelie suspiciously left her (play) pink cell phone here. I think she wanted to make sure she would see Dylan again...tricky girls...:)

Today we got a wonderful picture in the mail from Amelie. Thank you!! Dylan likes it a lot!

Snow

Here's pictures from the one (and looking to be only) snow fall we had this year. So we only got one use out of the snow pants. Dylan seemed to like the snow. But he likes being outside no matter what, regardless of temperature.

New Word

Dylan started saying "bus" yesterday. We're trying to teach him the difference between bus and truck and car car.

Dylan's favorite things

You already know about the balloon and shoes so now I'm going to tell you about cars and ducks. Dylan can say "car car" now and he loves looking out the window of the house or the car and pointing out the cars. He also points out the cars when we go for a walk. And his current favorite toy is this set of stacking cars that my MIL bought Dylan for Christmas. These cars are great. They are all different colors and they each have a number on them and most importantly they don't make their own noise!

Dylan has 3 rubber duckies that he plays with in and out of the bath. He can say "ducks" too although sometime it comes out like "dutch" and sometimes we think he is saying "you're dutch" to which we reply, "no, you're dutch." (This is a Z family joke so sorry if you don't get it.) Dylan points out all the ducks in his books and on his toothbrush.

I already told you how much Dylan is into his Daddy but just this last week he's gotten more into Daddy. Yesterday he was looking out the window for Martin to come but it was only 9:30 in the morning. Then when he woke up from his nap, he heard water running and it knew it wasn't me so he asked if daddy was in the bathroom by saying "da?" Unfortunately it was just the upstairs neighbor flushing her toilet. This morning he cried when Martin left for work and one morning last week Martin dropped him off at day care and he cried then too even though he never cries when I leave him. Then, something really cute happened last night and this morning - Martin kissed me while I was holding Dylan. Martin kissed Dylan too. But instead of Dylan kissing Daddy back - he kissed me! I think he just wanted to be like Daddy but I got the kiss! :)

Attached to the balloon

The morning after Charlie's birthday party, Dylan went right for the balloon when he woke up. He wouldn't even let go to eat breakfast.

More pics from our social weekend last month

The same weekend as Charlie's birthday party, I also went to a baby shower for my friend Laura B. and a baptism lunch for our friends' baby.

My friend Jan and I showed up to the shower wearing the exact same outfit! Thankfully we are both secure enough that neither of us had to go home and change.

Here's Laura and her 3 sisters-in law and her MIL. Laura had a baby girl on February 19th.

Here's my cute husband and my cute son at the baptism party.

Here are the parents of the baby who was baptized - Russ (center) and Patricia. We hang out with them often and play Wi.

This is Richie. His baptism party was fun - we ate all Peruvian food and half of the conversations going on where in Spanish.

Leap Day Weekend

This was the most fun Leap Day Weekend that I remember (out of the 7 that I've been around for). Friday we went to Panera and I got the you-pick-two meal. I got a sandwich and a chicken cesaer salad, with a ton of chicken for a half salad. Since I already had meat on my sandwich, I tried giving Dylan the chicken off of my salad. He ate ALL of it. I was so surprised. I'm so thrilled too. Maybe he just doesn't like warm food (that would be a blessing if he didn't). Seemed like he was still hungry when we got home - he went to the fridge and pointed at the cereal bowl in the fridge with his leftover oatmeal in it. (We just tried that morning to give him instant adult oatmeal instead of the baby stuff.) So I took it out and started feeding him the cold oatmeal and he ate ALL of it. Maybe he was just that hungry that he would eat cold oatmeal or maybe he really likes it cold. I'll keep you posted.

Between Panera and home we stopped at the grocery store. As soon as we walked into the store Dylan pointed to all the balloons. I think he spotted each one in the whole store.

Yesterday, we went to the national geographic museum to see the frog exhibit. Apparently that was a popular leap day weekend activity since there were a ton of people there. We all had fun. I liked the poisonous blue frogs and Dylan liked see how far he could "jump." Martin liked the big bullfrogs.

Today we had some friends over for lunch - the husband/father was one of Martin's former roommates and I hung out with the wife/mom at my breastfeeding support group since their son is 6 days younger than Dylan.

In preparation for our friends coming over, we decided to vacuum yesterday. We only do this when people come over sadly so it had been about 6 weeks, I'm not too proud to admit. We've had this vacuum since we got married and we're too fond of it. Every time Martin uses it, I think because of the angle he pushes it, it comes apart (part of the easy release filter). Well, we went to vacuum yesterday and the thing started spewing dust everywhere. Turns out I think we accidently threw out the filter when we were cleaning it out. I figured instead of trying to find the right filter for the thing and spending $20-$30 on a new filter, we'd just get a new vacuum. I did a little bit of research online and found one at BB&B. Martin went out and got it and used our 20% off coupon. It was a relatively painless process surprisingly. And the new Hoover works great. It feels like it's pulling you along.

So how did you spend your leap day weekend?

Charlie's birthday

Here are pictures of the birthday boy. There were lots of boys at Charlie's party and they all wore red! The adults had a great time too. The theme of the party was Curious George.