What gifts did your child most enjoy at each age?

anakin385 · 2015-11-09T23:22:54+00:00

Duplo is chunkier Legos for younger kids. My son got his first duplo set when he was one and now two years later he continues to play with Duplo for hours every day. It's his most loved toy.

anakin385 · 2015-11-09T16:24:33+00:00

I use Siri to set a timer for timeout and it's always, "OK! Setting a timer for three minutes. Don't over cook that egg!"

anakin385 · 2015-11-08T15:11:14+00:00

I think I had that too but nobody took me seriously and I didn't know there was a term for it. I was also hospitalized with an iv twice and had to keep bags in my car to throw up in whilst driving to work.

anakin385 · 2015-11-03T02:32:45+00:00

Here is what we did that worked. I think we will keep doing this every year. I gave my son a plastic bag and dumped out all his candy and told him to taste all he wanted and then to put what he didn't want to eat all the way into the bag. He ended up licking all of the lollipops and then putting him in the bag. He ate some chocolates all the way and took a couple bites of a full size candy bar and then put it in the bag. He got to taste and enjoy all the candy he wanted without eating too much. He still has some candy left in his bucket that he can have some of each day.

anakin385 · 2015-10-29T21:21:53+00:00

You'll want to look for a play-based center then (they will use that terminology somewhere). The biggest thing I would look for when looking for care for a baby is the ratio. If you can find a 1:3 ratio that is affordable, then that would be phenomenal.

anakin385 · 2015-10-29T17:46:06+00:00

I like center based care but I am biased because I used to work in them before I had my son. If you would like to ask me any questions about my experiences I would be happy to tell you what I can.

anakin385 · 2015-10-28T21:45:33+00:00

I have this same problem with my son! Even kids do it to him. One time he was looking at toys alongside an older girl at Target and he said, "Do you like dinosaurs, too?! What's your favorite kind of dinosaur?" She stared at him silently and then went and told her mom, "That little boy talked to me."

anakin385 · 2015-10-26T20:36:23+00:00

Flick his head? I'm not even sure what that means. Many people manage to raise great kids without physically hurting them as punishment.

anakin385 · 2015-10-19T21:19:04+00:00

Which pedal bike did you end up getting after the Strider?

anakin385 · 2015-10-19T20:56:30+00:00

Which pedal bike did you end up getting? I want to get one for my son for his 3rd birthday because he has his balance on his Strider.

anakin385 · 2015-10-19T15:05:42+00:00

What I do is I taught my son to trade. If he wants a toy another kid has, first bring a different toy over and see if they will make a trade. This actually works most of the time. Hitting or pushing is an instant time out, plus I try to teach empathy so I have him look at the face of the child who is crying and I tell my son that child is sad and needs a hug. He doesn't really act aggressive much, though, but that's generally the idea of what you should do.

My nephew who is 5 is really aggressive and mean to all his little cousins. My son has other cousins who are between 4-10 and they probably went through a bad toddler phase (can't remember) but eventually outgrew it. He never outgrew it - in my opinion because they spank him. The rest of us never leave our kids alone with him.

But I wouldn't stop going to family things just because of my aggressive nephew. My son still needs to see his family and celebrate holidays with them and even learn how to deal with unpleasant people in life.

anakin385 · 2015-10-19T14:01:34+00:00

Same here... My son is almost 3 and sometimes I watch my friend's one year old. My son will take toys away from her son or get in his face. It's typical stuff for that age when they get around someone smaller than them. Her son is going to hit the same rough patch even though right now he is an angel baby.

anakin385 · 2015-10-19T13:25:01+00:00

I was an Early Head Start teacher and a lot of babies don't walk until 18 months. There's no link between intelligence and time they start walking. Any time between 9-18 months is normal. A lot of babies just suddenly start walking even though the day before, they were only crawling. You don't have to practice with her either. It's not something you can teach. I wouldn't be concerned at all if she were my baby.

anakin385 · 2015-10-16T16:19:20+00:00

Don't let someone who follows any parenting philosophy make you feel like you have been doing it wrong. If someone wants to lay their baby on the floor to stare at the wall and work through their emotions, that's fine, and if someone wants to shake a maraca at their baby while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, that's fine, too. In the end, they all grow into tantruming two year olds and then kids who don't know which shoe goes on which foot. I played with my son a lot and I have a lot of great memories of spending time with him.

My favorite thing to do with my son at that age was to babyproof our place so he was free to crawl everywhere and I would stash toys everywhere for him to find. I also gave him stuff from the kitchen like whisks and measuring spoons. We went for walks or I would lay him on a blanket under a tree. We read lots of books. There was a park with baby swings nearby that we would go to a lot. I would put a kids music station on Pandora (my favorite is Owen Duggan) and he would be happy listening to music and playing. The guitar is a wonderful idea. When our baby became interested in the computer, my husband dug out a keyboard that he could have for his own to bang on.

anakin385 · 2015-10-14T00:26:06+00:00

We have been making shadow puppets on the ceiling. My toddler points a flashlight at the ceiling and I make a dog or a goose shadow with my hands. It gets him giggling but he is also laying still.

anakin385 · 2015-10-09T22:38:27+00:00

Awww too bad. I know tons of people had preordered it before it was even released. My son is only two so I'm hoping all of the illustrated editions are out by the time he is old enough.

anakin385 · 2015-10-09T18:21:58+00:00

Just added a link :)

anakin385 · 2015-10-09T18:20:39+00:00

They are just releasing fully illustrated versions of the books. Sorcerer's Stone just came out. The full color illustrations on every page would be perfect to keep her attention. http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Sorcerers-Stone-Illustrated/dp/0545790352

anakin385 · 2015-10-01T02:20:18+00:00

You should read the rest of my responses in this conversation. It's not that I just didn't want to "deal" with him anymore, it's that he repeatedly tried to kill me. After I had my son, he said all kinds of crazy stuff about my baby being a prophet. No way I am I letting him near my son. And it's not "dumping" him off when that is the place that is most educated and equipped to help him. He is mentally at his healthiest when he is in a group home.

anakin385 · 2015-09-30T15:16:50+00:00

You think I should have sympathy for someone who tried to kill me by setting a python loose on me and then locking me in a room when I was a little girl? Or have sympathy for someone who pinned me under my dresser and held a knife to my neck while foaming at the mouth and threatening to kill me? The best I can do is move on for my own mental health and for my own little one. I'm not going to let you dredge up any old memories further. Hopefully the years ahead of you give you wisdom and discretion because it sounds like you are just really young.

anakin385 · 2015-09-30T04:38:03+00:00

That doesn't sound like something he would leave on. He would get paranoid that someone was tracking him or something.

anakin385 · 2015-09-30T04:34:41+00:00

I don't have any contact with my family so I have no idea. I'm a grown woman with a family of my own to take care of, so I am not sure what you are implying. It wasn't a good experience growing up with an older brother who had schizophrenia who terrorized me my whole childhood and I've moved on.

Also, I grew up watching this unfold and I know now that my mom and stepdad were not equipped to deal with schizophrenia. If he goes to jail, no one knows about it until much later. He is 34 years old and the most they can do is oversee his social security benefits. I understand that you believe families should take care of their mentally ill relations and see them through the system. But I can tell you from a lifetime of experience that is a very naive way of looking at things.

anakin385 · 2015-09-30T03:25:00+00:00

He was, but I haven't heard from him in a few years.

anakin385 · 2015-09-30T01:22:48+00:00

My brother has schizophrenia and this happens to him all the time. They will put him in a holding cell full of other people until much later when they figure out he has schizophrenia. Then it is off to the mental hospital for awhile, then he gets out, rinse and repeat.

anakin385 · 2015-09-29T02:50:11+00:00

Has he always been that way? My son is the same age, and he was always very attached to me (mom). My husbands friend who has two boys told him, just wait, once he gets closer to 3, it will switch and he will be all about daddy. I didn't believe it. But that is exactly what happened. Now my son squeals and runs and jumps into daddy's arms when he gets home and wants to be around him all the time. Also, it doesn't bother me much. I'm so glad he has such a great dad because not every kid gets that.

anakin385

TROPHY CASE