Well, Ben is getting his first tooth. It’s his bottom right front tooth. He’s actually doing really well with it. Last night we had to give him baby Tylenol because he just wouldn’t go to sleep. My wife is VERY excited about the 1st tooth. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great, but she is just beside herself.

I wanted to revisit two of the things I’ve written about before. I got some comments posted here and more than a few via e-mail.

One is Tehilah waking up during the night. I ended up not doing what I said I would do, i.e. let her cry it out. I go in and lay down next to her for a few moments and she calms down and goes back to sleep. It makes us both much happier. I don’t have the torture of listening to my daughter cry and she sleeps better.

The other thing I wanted to touch on was the discipline issue. Several people objected (some of them quite strongly) to the hand smacking. I want to clear something up. This happens maybe twice a month. In fact, I can’t remember the last time it happened as now Tehilah knows that she can get a hand smack when she is in trouble. Generally we ask her to stop what she is doing and if she doesn’t we ask her if she wants to be in trouble. Then she stops. So I think that this form of discipline has worked. Its a deterrent that we rarely have to use.

Lastly, my mother in law was here recently on a visit and she brought Tehilah two new books from the same series I mentioned before. (Thanks again Ruth!) The first one is Sharing is Fun and its very good. The main theme is that the little boy in the book has friends coming over to play and before they arrive his mommy talks to him about sharing. When the guests arrive there is a bit of a scene over a toy fire truck and the little boy is reminded to share. When ever we get to the page where the boy is pulling the fire truck away from the girl, Tehilah says “No No No!” and shakes her finger to tell him he has to share.

The other book is My Big Girl Potty, by the same author. (My Big Boy Potty is also available.) Its your standard potty training book but I can really see that its helping. Tehilah uses the potty about once a day now that we have started reading the book at bedtime. We aren’t pushing her with potty training. In a month or two once she has gotten more used to the potty, we will really start the toilet training. As of now we just give her lots of encouragement. When she does ‘go’ we tell her what a big girl she is and how proud we are of her. The next step is that we plan to get her some pull up diapers next week. That’s going to be very exciting.

The following entry was written by a friend of mine who has an ADHD child and has invested a lot of energy in finding the best ways to help them.

J.T.

Background: I should note that ADHD is not necessarily bad. ADHD often means that someone is a “doer,” not a “sitter” or a “sponge”. Schools like sitting sponges, but there are other important skills in the world as well. It is therefore very important that ADHD not be allowed to destroy a child or his/her self-image.

In the long-term, doers are often the people that make the world go around. If they can survive the school system ADHD kids might go on to be the bosses or employers of some of the “sponges” that did better than them in school.

Possible treatments/solutions:

- Contact an ADHD support group or health care professional with experience treating children with ADHD. They can help guide the parents through some of the approaches below.

- Be in constant touch with the child’s teacher(s) and principal. Explain the situation and try to find ways with the teacher(s) to minimize any problems that might arise. A good teacher will learn to understand the child’s behavior and will discover ways to handle the child when s/he begins “acting up”. It is very important that an adversarial relationship does not develop between the child and the teacher as this will just make any behavioral problems worse.

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Ben has started scooting himself backwards across the floor. Saturday my wife couldn’t find him for a few seconds and got a bit worried, until she asked Tehilah where he was. Tehilah told her mater of factly, “Couch bottom.” So Julie looked under the couch and there he was, all smiles and proud of him self. I’m thinking about all the child proofing we are going to have to do soon. We will need child safety locks on all the cabinets and lock the door to my office. I can just see him crawling in here and seeing the shiny buttons on my computer and “Boom!” a day’s work down the tube. (Always backup your important work!) I’m glad that this is happening as spring is arriving. At least this way the heater will be off soon and we won’t need to worry about him crawling into that. Tehilah knows that it is “HOT” and she can’t touch it, but it will be a while before Ben can be taught that lesson.

I would like to say thanks to the people who have made comments on the blog, especially Hannah’s Mommy, and old friend from my time spent moderating the Baby-Place Message Boards. If any of you other old message board ladies (or Steve ) read this, please leave me a comment to say hello.

I showed this blog to my grandmother and she fell in love with it. She told me to write as much as possible so she can keep up with her great grandchildren. We do live several thousand miles apart, so having digital pictures and this blog really helps close the distance.

Anyway, a little advice. Now I know most of you parents out there are going to say, “Duh! That is so obvious!” but I never made the connection and I bet I’m not the only one. (I would be willing to bet that a lot more moms than dads figure this one out.) Back to the advice. When you take your two year old out somewhere with you make sure that they have eaten recently. We were at a family celebration yesterday and Tehilah was all grumpy for the first hour. Then she ate something. What a difference! She got up and danced with her cousins.

Ben is Ben. What can I say. Cute as a button. Some one said that he looks like me yesterday. Everyone always says he looks like Julie so this was a surprise I think we will be able to tell better in a year or so.

Ben has started eating solid food! It’s great. Julie tried bananas and while he liked sitting in the high chair and getting a spoon, he wasn’t so fond of the taste. The next day Julie tried sweet potatoes. SUCCESS! He loved it. There is one down side…. changing his diapers just got a lot stinkier. I’ve adopted an easy way to clean him (my father told me that he used to do the same for me). I simply take the baby strapped into the high chair and put the whole thing into the bathtub. I use the shower hose to clean everything off. Works like a charm and it takes only seconds.

We are having a discipline problems with Tehilah. She tends to take what she wants from younger children. If the little girl from across the street comes over and she and Tehilah are playing together, Tehilah will just take her toys away from her. We’ve tried telling her no and making her give the toy back, but she generally won’t listen. The only thing that we have discovered that works is asking her if she wants a slap on the hand. If she doesn’t respond we give her a very light smack on the hand and then take the toy and give it back to the other child. This smack, even though its no harder than a love pat, brings serious tears to her eyes. Neither Julie nor myself enjoy this, but its the only way she will listen. Any suggestions on another approach?