Reaction time!

To start out I think one of the greatest things that I’ve learned from my Mom (thanks Mom) is that you can’t control what is going to happen or how others are going to react, you can only control how YOU react to a situation. This holds true for lots of situations in life and I think especially in parenting. For example, I can’t control what Hunter is going to do with his food once I put it in front of him…I can however control my reaction when it goes toppling to the floor and he looks up at me waiting with a mischievous grin spread from ear to ear. Hehe…of course I can laugh about it now but in that moment when I’m trying to pull dinner together for Jason and I, Colton is ready to start his dinnertime melt down and Hunter is sitting in his highchair ready to start Food Fight 2010, I have to take a moment…deep breath in and out and remember…he is just doing it to see what kind of reaction it musters. This time I ignore it…say “Uh Oh! Let’s keep our food on our tray” and start to clean it up, all the while the little monster is trying to pull at my hair while I’m on all fours picking little bits of carrot and peas out of the carpet.

What a little turkey, sure he knows he shouldn’t deliberately toss his food over the edge but he simply can’t help the fact that he desperately needs to see what will happen. I think the easiest thing to forget is that he is going to learn from my reaction that “Gee I guess that didn’t work”, and that our consistency in his discipline (in this case ignoring the behavior entirely) is most important. Hunter is always striving for the laughs, he will definitely be a class clown. I will be that parent who has the child that brings home the “disturbs others in class” notated on his report cards. :-)

This testing for a reaction phase IS going to pass. Right?! Well actually, I’m not so naive to believe it will ever really pass, I’m sure it really just morphs as they get older. Maybe by the time Colton gets to this point we’ll be old pros. Maybe…?? Oh poor Hunter, our little guinea pig. :) We love you son!

This blog…

Well I originally started this blog to not only update our family and friends on the kids and to share pictures but to chronicle our crazy journey into parenthood. As most of you know (those of you who have followed along throughout the past year) I’ve tried to keep everyone up to date on the happenings with Hunter’s medical status. It seems that we have found a good treatment plan for now and not much changes month to month. I’ve decided to take this blog further into our daily life now with Hunter being a curious, loveable, inquisitive, some-times head strong toddler and with Colton just beginning to notice the world around him and share with you some of the things my children are teaching me about myself and the crazy world around us. I want to be able to look back at this blog years from now and see how far we’ve come through the tough stuff and use it to remember the really fantastic times too.