Adventures While Dad was Away

Jeff was out of town for work last week so I got to handle things alone with the kids. We did pretty well . . . even managed to have some fun & definitely some unplanned adventures!

While Jeff was gone we managed to . . .

• find out that our fire alarms work. This was totally not on purpose! And the sight of my cheese crisp coming out of the oven ON FIRE was crazy!
• get stuck in a car wash. The car wash grabbed on to our tires & pulled us through to the first stop & then got stuck. So, we were stuck being covered in soap & having those long strips of whatever brushing over us for about 5 minutes before I called Jeff in a panic for some advice. His answer of "just drive through" seemed so simple but I didn't know what would happen or if we'd be able to make it all the way through. We did make it through, got a profuse apology when we went inside & explained what happened, got a refund for the car wash & got sent through again AFTER they fixed the conveyor belt that had gotten stuck.
• find ourselves in very close proximity (within a 1/4 of a mile) of the evacuation line for a wildfire that was burning in our town. SCARY while I sat there & watched the coverage wondering if the evacuation area would be pushed further to include us & knowing it would be difficult with the two kids by myself.

But, despite it all, we made it through & definitely had a memorable time. (We're excited to have Jeff back home now!)

FHE: Bully or Superhero

Thanks to all the comments on my previous post, both on the blog & through facebook! I especially liked the suggestion that we need to teach that as members of our family, we should be each others' protectors. In that spirit, we are using a family home evening idea adapted from another blog. I'm printing out 2 pictures (one of a bully & one of a superhero) and putting them on popsicle sticks (each kid will get their own set of pictures to hold during the lesson). Then we'll talk about how we're supposed to take care of each other (like the superhero). I'm going to attach a superhero picture to a jar & each time the kids act like a superhero to each other we'll add a bean to the jar; when it gets filled up we'll go out for ice cream. With only 2 kids & them both being very small, we're going to use a small jar so we can fill it up quickly!

Click here for the lesson that inspired my adapted lesson, as well as the pictures that I'm using.

Parenting Help, Please!

We're going through a difficult time here. When the new baby was brought home from the hospital (over a year ago!) there really weren't any problems with the 2 year old. Now that one year has gone by, he's having some serious problems with her . . . she takes his toys, he has to share things with her & we're just plain struggling. He even starts throwing a fit when she wakes up from a nap or wakes up in the morning (after him); he starts crying, "No, Evie's not awake!"

What to do? We've relocated a few of his toys to his bedroom (the ones that he has a really hard time sharing) so that he can play with some things by himself. We've done occasional one-on-ones - where mom takes one & dad takes the other on an errand alone. And we've given Chase a couple of grown-up jobs that he really likes.

Do I just have to wait for him to grow out of the stage or is there more that I could be doing? Help, please!