Picking your battles

This is a concept I learned a lot about in my 5 years of teaching junior high math. It is probably the most helpful thing I learned, especially when it comes to parenting. I had not had my children yet when I was teaching so I didn't have that maternal experience to rely on. One of the most important things of picking your battles is understanding that what seems like a battle worth fighting one day might not seem so worth it another day. I don't think this automatically means you are being wishy-washy. I think it means you are evaluating your methods and understand that this parenting thing is not a rigid set of rules but instead a living breathing entity (namely your kids). You have to step back every now and then and see if your methods are working or if your just spending all your time yelling with no one listening. That's what I've been doing these last few weeks. I have thought many times "I know they hear me because they look at me when I speak, but why aren't they listening to anything I say?!?!?!" So here is a list of battles I've chosen not to fight today, at least for now, and some I'm still fighting.

I give...
1. Not allowing my 22 mo. old son to sit in the bouncey chair. He loves it and I feel like my limiting him was only making him love it more.

2. Keeping my daughter away from the baby so she wouldn't spread her cold germs to her. Ok, this is definitely a temporary lapse but when my son, the baby, and I all woke up this morning with the cold it's hardly worth it anymore.



Still fighting...
1. Not allowing my son to pick up the baby by himself. I almost had a heart attack yesterday when he tried to pick her up off the sofa!! I will not back down on this one.

2. Not allowing my son to feed the baby cheerios or any other food. I knew it was only a matter of time before the sweet boy tried to share his food with the baby. I will stand firm, at least until she's old enough to eat food.

3. Not allowing my son to rip my daughter's hair out by the handful. I've got this pretty well handled at home-send my daughter to another room to play until he forgets why he was mad-but I haven't quite figured out the best way to deal with this in the car. Cramming all three kids across the back seat of our car isn't a good situation for anyone but it will have to do for quite a while longer.

Wow, it sounds like my son is a little hell raiser. Really he isn't. He is a very sweet little guy normally. The onset of "terrible two's" and the birth of our baby have happened all at once for him and it seems to be a bit more than he can handle. He still gives the best hugs ever and snuggles with me in the cutest little way. The transition from 1 kid to 2 was really pretty easy for us. The same cannot be said for going from 2 kids to 3. But I wouldn't trade my sweet baby girl for anything and I know this will all pass in time...until she learns how to crawl.