Snow Day

First Time Sledding

This Saturday we woke up to a unexpected snowstorm.  The funny thing about Brody and snow is that he loves to play with it and thinks its hilarious when you throw snowballs at him but he is terrified of snow falling from the sky.  If it is actively snowing you can't even think of taking him outside in it.  He screams bloody murder and clings to you.  If he notices that some of the snowflakes have fallen on his arm he will shake his arm violently trying to get them off.  It is sad but really quite comical at the same time.  Luckily by the afternoon it had stopped snowing and we were able to take our little buddy outside for his first sled ridding experience.

Brody really enjoyed sledding down the hill the first few times with Dave but after a few times of sledding down the small hill by himself and face planting in the snow at the bottom he decided that he didn't care to much for the sled.  We tried to build a snowman, but ultimately ended up with nothing but one big pile of snow. We will have to work on our snowman building technique in the future.

Tantrums

Okay, I will be the first to admit it.  Before Brody I used to think that I would know exactly how to handle my kid if he threw a tantrum in the middle of a store or a restaurant.  Well, guess what our sweet little Brody has developed a big attitude lately and has demonstrated his anger with us in the most embarrassing ways.  Most of the time his outburst have to do with him wanting something that we will not let him have.  Here are a few examples:

     - In Rite Aid he decided to melt onto the floor and scream when I took away a plastic pill holder that he found while we were shopping.

     - At Outback Steakhouse the other night he started screaming because we wouldn't let him eat any more bread or hold his Styrofoam sippie cup.

     - At Gordmans he would turn into a limp noodle when I tried to take his hand and guide him to walk in the direction I wanted to go.

Luckily for us all of these outburst took place in a setting where we were able to leave promptly and avoid the stares from those around us thinking that they would handle the situation better.   The biggest problem I have with these tantrums is that they are occurring so often.  He cries, screams, and even growls at us when ever we take something away from him which unfortunately is very often.  He is just in to everything.  Dave and I have had to learn to let him flail on the floor at home screaming and ignore him when he is crying and tugging at our legs to be picked up.  It is so hard.  Anyone who said that you are able to tune out your kids cry and scream is lying.  It not only makes me very sad to hear him carry on like this it also annoys the heck out of me and I can often feel my blood pressure going up. 

I keep telling myself that this is just a stage and that we need to nip this in the butt now so that he knows who is in charge.  Its just so hard because it seams we are in a power struggle with him most of the day. It would be nice if there were clear directions for parents on how to handle these issues.  I recently told my friend who just had a new baby that the decisions you have to make for your child are so much easier when they are a little newborn.  All that you have to decide is how to feed them, diaper them, and how to get them to sleep.  Once you hit the toddler years the decisions you have to make become much more difficult.  You have to decide how to discipline your child, how to educate them and how to start teaching them to function appropriately in this crazy world.  I just hope that we are making the right decisions for Brody and that how we decide to handle these issues and the issues we encounter with him in the future will teach him to be a mature well adjusted adult. 

Bro Bro

Last year I completely forgot to write about Andrea, Brett, Cole and Graham staying with us.  I guess since it was around the Holidays it just slipped my mind.  Anyway, Andrea and Brett were in the middle of selling their old house and moving closer to Lexington.  In order to help them out we offered to let them stay with us during the week.  Most people thought we were crazy to invite house guest with a toddler and a newborn to stay but I think we all really had a good time and enjoyed each others company.  Brody especially loved having a playmate all day.  Cole is 6 months older than Brody and despite their frequent fights they love playing with each other.  Now that they are all moved into their new house, Cole has been asking about "Bro Bro," so we decided to go visit them at their new house this weekend. 

The boys had lots of fun playing with each other, while I snuggled baby Graham and Dave helped Brett build his new workbench in the garage.  We all can't wait till the summer when we can spend the day on their land and the boys can run around outside.  

I wish I had better pictures of the day but have you ever tried to take a picture of two wild and crazy toddler boys.  Its near impossible!  

2014

January so far has been a pretty good month for us.  Brody did get sick pretty bad the first week but it has been smooth sailing from then.  We have tried to keep him busy by visiting Lowes, Kohls, Gordman's, etc.  He just loves to walk around the store and push the shopping carts.  We had one exceptionally warm day, that allowed us the opportunity to play outside.  We took advantage of this and went to Shilito park where we had the park all to our selves.  Brody definitely had a good time climbing and going down the slide and I had a good time taking pictures with my new camera.