We are trying to prepare Turo as much as we can for his new role as big brother. We have books. He took a class on becoming a big sibling. We talk about babies and how he'll be such a good, helpful big brother. I'm excited to see him in this new role.
Turo practices gentle touches
My mom taught me some basic sewing skills a few weekends ago so we could make Christmas stockings. It was pretty fun. Now I'm wondering what other things I could make...
In his younger days, Turo was not a picky eater. He was happy to try whatever you gave him. Now, he has developed a more discriminating palate. This isn't usually a problem at breakfast or lunch since we pretty much eat the same sorts of food for those those meals. But dinner is a whole other deal (plus if you add the fact that I'm vegetarian and Jose is not, nightly cooking becomes a challenge). I don't want to make Turo his own meal totally separate from ours, and I don't want to turn eating into a power struggle. So usually I try to offer whatever we're eating plus something easy I know he will eat. I encourage him to try everything on his plate, but I don't force him to eat anything or count out the bites he has left. I'm hoping that eventually patience and persistence will pay off and he'll stop being so picky.
My version of dinner the other night: quesadillas & chickpea/spinach soup
And if I really want to get him to eat his dinner, I can offer up a banana as an incentive. I do love that a piece of fruit can be a bribe to eat other healthy things.
Last month our 15 year old male neighbor babysat Turo for a couple of hours. Jose set up the Wii for them and I failed to mentioned to our neighbor that Turo isn't allowed to play the sword fighting game on Wii resort (it's not super violent, but they knock each other down and fall into the water). Well, they pretty much played that game for duration of our date.
Turo now likes to recreate this scenario with his play people. We talk about how fighting isn't nice and that we don't push/hit our friends. Yet, here is Bert ready to knock Baby into the "water."
How much of this do I worry about? Peace loving moms of older boys have told me stories about their sons turning sticks and bread into guns. Is this a boy thing? As long as Turo isn't actually hurting real people is it okay to create somewhat violent imaginary scenarios?
The other night we were reading Martin's Big Words (which is a beautiful book by the way) and it talks about how MLK taught love and how to fight with words not fists. I made sure to point this out to Turo.
Maybe we need to stage a peace rally with the play people...
I'm lacking a green thumb and get discouraged at my inability to keep my yard/garden looking amazing (using only "green" methods). I was going through fall photos from last year and found this one of my sad, brown grass.
Then I looked at this one I took last weekend. And it made me feel like maybe I am making a little progress.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to get our yard ready for winter. The dead plants have been cut down, outdoor furniture has been put away, leaves have been raked. And as much as I love the summer, I do look forward to having one less set of chores to worry about for a few months.
Turo didn't have preschool today due to conferences, so I decided to let him have a major say in what we did today. I kept my household chores to a minimum and really tried to stay in the present with my boy. After waking up, we snuggled in bed while watching Elmo & train youtube videos. We raced & "bammed" trucks into various targets for over an hour. Then there was some cartoon watching before lunch. Turo's main request for the day was to go to the mall, so he ran and played with some new friends for almost two hours. And I ran into an old friend from college, which was an added bonus. When we got home, we played outside until it started to sprinkle, read for a bit, had dinner and then continued the truck racing/bamming game until bathtime.
Some days I feel like I spend a lot of time saying "in a minute" and "hold on" to his requests for play and attention. There always seems to be something to cook, launder, sweep, mow, weed, scrub, tidy, fold, wash... I do spend time each day with Turo, but often it is in chunks in between household chores or errands.
It felt good to give ourselves the day just to hang out and play. We need to do this more often.
Turo has started noticing numbers. In the grocery store, on the pages of his books, in the car, on the tape measure... It's amazing to watch him make these little discoveries.
(Don't worry Turo doesn't sit in the front seat without a seatbelt. He just likes to "play drive" when we get home.)
