Turned Around

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

Recently, I’d helped some friends figure out car seat options when I realized I hadn’t checked to see if Brooke was still below her seat’s max weight for rear-facing.

Rear-Facing for the Last Time

As I’d feared, she now weighs too much to safely ride rear-facing so the moment I’d put off as long as I could had finally shown itself and smacked me in the face.

That weekend we switched her seat around forward-facing.

It has since become clear that it will take some time to adjust to this new setup. What I’ve discovered so far:

  • There is no sneaking food or drink by the front passengers because Miss Brooke sees all
  • Speaking of seeing all, she also has a new perspective out the windows which leads to a barage of “What’s that, Mommy?” or “Mommy, more cows!!”.
  • I am now reminded and then commanded to “Stop” as soon as she sees a stop sign – no matter how far from it we are. This week she even critiqued my stop.
Forward-facing and Being Silly

When did my baby become a little kid????

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

photo credit: busyPrinting
If that adage is true, and you see a little ball of fire running by…it could quite possibly be my child.

The reasonable side of me knows that its a phase she was bound to go through.

The irrational side doesn’t want my daughter to be a LIAR!!!

It hadn’t been a problem at home but Brooke mentioned to me a time or two that she’d been in timeout that day for lying. My inner self rolled my eyes because I’m not huge fan of timeouts but my outer self gave a “no lying” lecture.

The next morning on the way to school, we again talked about the importance of not lying to which Brooke told me we shouldn’t lie “so we don’t get timeout”.

Yeah, that’s what I getting at…

The lying thing wasn’t an issue again until Friday night. We attended an event at church and the kiddos were served pizza in their classroom while the adults had theirs in various places throughout the building.

As were driving home, Brooke asked if she could have dinner when we get home. I was confused since she should have had pizza in her classroom. So I asked her and she told me she hadn’t had dinner.

My first instinct of course is anger. “THEY DIDN’T FEED MY BABY!!”

Then I start digging a little more and with each answer, I’m more unsure of what to think and I’m becoming upset because I’m not sure who I’m upset with!!

As we’re pulling up the driveway, Brooke finally fesses up she did have dinner at church.

At that point, neither outcome was going to make me happy. However, I think it did create a good learning opportunity. I stressed to her the lack of trust that comes from telling lies. I was able to tell her I was proud of her for telling the truth, albeit late in the game. I explained that her teachers could have gotten in trouble even though they didn’t do anything wrong.

I’m hopeful that the experience really helped her figure it out and that telling the truth has more value than “not getting in timeout”.

What tricky behavior issues have you dealt with lately?

Party for a Cause

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

I wish I had heard about this earlier so I could have really promoted the heck out of it but I didn’t so I’m hopeful that I can still make an impact and even more hopeful that you will help me.

Starting today, I am hosting  a virtual Super Bowl party to raise money for St. Jude.   You can access my page here.

Why did I want to get involved with fundraising for St. Jude?  For starters, they are just a great organization. To quote their info:

St. Jude treats the world’s sickest children battling cancer and other deadly diseases and no family ever pays St. Jude for the care their child receives. St. Jude is researching the world’s deadliest pediatric diseases—doing research that no one else is doing and sharing the findings. Today, millions of children around the world are benefiting from St. Jude’s discoveries. Because of this, it costs more than $1.7 million a day to keep the life-saving research and treatment going.

But my reason for doing this come from a personal place too. As I’ve mentioned here before, Brooke was born with torticollis. Brooke’s was fairly minor case but it still meant weekly (at times twice a week) visits to a physical therapists, x-rays, CT scans and a TOT collar. It was at times expensive and scary.

So, how must it feel to have your child diagnosed with CANCER? I can’t even imagine so I’m happy there is a place like St. Jude that provides care AND research at no cost to families. But that funding has to come from somewhere.

So I’m asking you to help me reach a goal of $250 at my virtual St. Jude Game Day. Give Back Party.

Enjoy the Super Bowl!! Who ya rooting for??