With boys one just never gets a moment peace (…I think girls are actually louder though – it is the high pitch thing). My boys are wrestling and annoying each other 24×7. Never a dull moment. I can hear Tanner shouting to Ty to “put that away” at this very moment. Better go check.
He was ripping a magazine. Big surprise.
Anyhow…….
I have spent the last little bit trying to read books to the boys. They were fighting over who got to turn the pages. Singing settles a lot of issues in our house so Tanner starting asking me to sing songs for every picture. I have a huge repertoire of kids and praise songs in this little head so I actually only had to make a couple up because I could think of relating song themes to most of the pictures he chose (lucky for me…making up songs on the fly may be a task above my level of functioning right now). Ty was distracted by the music so he just sat and clapped. (Hold up – Ty is crying – going to check again – he was taking Tanner’s hippo – sheeeeeshh).
Tanner is coming around on the music stuff. His favorite song this week has been “He’s Got the Whole World”. So precious.
On Prayer
Tanner has been wanting to pray himself lately but he primarily volunteers to do this before eating. As a result, he is associating prayer to food. The other day, Tanner was being unkind to his brother so we had a talk about being accountable when we don’t obey parents and God. Tanner and I decided to pray together and Tanner was supposed to tell the Lord he was sorry for disobeying. He knew he was supposed to be apologizing for something (kids have short termers) but praying usually is associated to food (in his mind) so this was his prayer “God I am sorry I didn’t eat”. 🙂
I had to remind him what the trespass was and we got that all straightened out LOL.
He also has been warming my heart each time I hear this prayer “God – thank you for making me”. The sweetest thing about that is that I never told Tanner he should say that – it was totally on his own. When I pray with Tanner I always thank God for giving Tanner to me as such an incredible gift. I guess Tanner thinks he should start thanking the Lord for his precious life too – and I agree – he should – we all should. For we are all precious in HIS sight.
Who said?
Kids are so comical with the way they mentally process through things. My friend Laura came over to visit me with her two kids last week. Her youngest, Joshua was in the NICU with Ty. (Ty also got to see his NICU buddy Landen last week ). Anyhow, I had to go to the chiropractor so Laura volunteered to watch the boys while I was gone. When I got back Tanner met me in the hall and said “Who said I could stand on the chairs?”
When questions like this are asked of parents, one generally hesitates with a quizzical look before answering. Laura helped me out with this when she explained that Tanner had been standing on a chair in my absence and like any good mother she said “Tanner does your mommy let you stand on chairs?” His answer was “Yes” (apparently we are going to have to work on telling the truth 🙂 ). Laura then said “I don’t think anyone let’s you stand on chairs.”
Apparently, the rationale of a 4 year old is that if Laura said that I don’t let him stand on chairs yet he is still doing it than someone else must have said that he could – therefore he wanted me to tell him who that mystery person was when I got home. I have a feeling that the “nobody” imaginary friend is going to get a lot of attention in my near future.
Computers
In the past Tanner was an XBox fanatic. Due to the sheer amount of time that would absorb him, Jim and I derailed the Xbox future by putting huge limits on time spent on that activity. One fine day last week though I taught Tanner how to use my computer mouse. I opened up www.playhousedisney.com, www.pbskids.com, and the fisher price site and away he went. He is so good at it that he can navigate through everything without any assistance. Pretty impressive when he can’t read. I have no idea how he manages so well. My lap top has been effectively shanghaied now though. Going to have to start looking into guardian programs for the internet. I am too afraid that my little ones will inadvertently stumble onto something so I hope I find really great protective boundary blockers. Open to suggestions on this one.
Fuss-rae
This is Tanner’s new word. Yesterday he was putting a puzzle together and said “Mommy! This puzzle is so fuss-rae!” 🙂 (Frustrating). Gotta love it.
6 responses to “Fuss-ray”
Hey I know I just sent a huge comment but this needed it also. 1st we need to get Kourtney and Ty together sometime I am so jealous all the little boys are hanging. We could get some cute before and AFTER pics. With my kids in school all day it will work better for me to get out without the whole clan so lets plan something sometime soon.
OK next thing about cool web sites for kids we love http://www.starfall.com this is all about letters and then even goes into reading for older kids you choose the area that works best for your child’s age. The kids are learning, but they just think they playing on the computer yippee. I got on and went to the basic ABC page and put that as one of my favorites and Tyler 3 1/2 can click on it and play. And next thing is we had somebody come do our parental blockers because we are computer illiterate, but I do know you can maybe use something like http://www.we-blocker.com and as you already know I’m sure cause you definitely know more on this side of things than I can even imagine…you can always do a search for web filters or parental controls I feel really silly telling you something to do with the internet but since you asked I’m giving. We also have a girl in my ward who pretty much just does this for a living she gave us so much info. Did you know that you can set a program up on your computer that only parents can manage. This would pertain to older children here, but after they are on the internet you can go to the computer and do some magic button pushing and watch a play back of exactly what the kid just did the program basically takes a picture of the screen every five seconds and stores it for you to view later you will be able to witness the awesome learning your children are doing or the frightening stuff that is out there and you don’t think your kids would be a part of. Kids are so smart these days they can almost get around anything if they are computer savvy enough. This is a must for someone like me whos 9 yr. old is already doing things on here that I cant all safe of course as Doni would say, “sheeesh” !! Hope this helps someone. ~Shayla~
My 7 yr old has been on the computer since he was 18 months old. (his dad works on them for a living) We had a problem with him figuring out the passwords for going to other websites. I ended up getting norton internet security and having him have his own user account on my oc. On his account he can only access programs and internet sites that I have manually typed in. We had had the problem of him searching for things and getting adult rated sites. Alot of regular sites have only one letter off for them to be adult rated. So far with internet security I haven’t had him yelling for me to come get the ‘bad’ things off his computer. Although he does not like all the sites I have ok’d, they are all learning and he likes to have some fighting involved lol. A boy thing of course.
seth is almost 2.5 and i’ve not let him on my computer. i think it would be fun for him sometimes and have showed him some kid stuff…. but i’m no ready for him to hyjack it or end up deleteing something important! he likes to just hit keys and click away – no sense of order and i just don’t care to teach him yet because i have a feeling it’s going to create some sort of battle for me…. i’m limiting battles at the moment as my coping skills are shortened after both boys being sick – now jas has a cold and i feel like i’m fighting it but on the verge of getting it. oh dear… guess i better go update MY site… it’s been a while.
My son Hayden is addicted to Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega and Ive recently had to cut way down on playing time, so its funny to read that you do the same with Tanner and the X Box. I cant believe at barely five, Haydne can be so good at it! I was one of those moms who swore a videoo game would never enter my home, but when it came as a birthday present and he opened it and saw it, I could hardly take it away. Plus, it is about a hedgehog and fox and there isnt any blood or gore. That kind would hav went straight back to the store it came from! Hayden has been playing at playhousedisney.com since he was 3 and he know it better than me! I think its the best website for kids by far. He also likes me to print the pages to color from nickjr.com, although the games there are a little harde and not near as kid-friendly as Playhouse Disney. At this rate, he will be better on the computer than me in no time.
My 7 yr old is quite adept at surfing the net and my husband has been meaning to get the guardian software up and running. Well, the other day forced the issue! While trying to get to the Hot Wheels website (which he had been to many times before) he accidently missed the W. Of course at that moment I was being called to supervise something going on in the other room. He was calling to me, “Mom – the Hot Wheels site is not working! Can you come fix it?” YIKES! Basically he had to stay off the computer for a couple of days until Dad got DansGuardian up and running. I don’t know anything about this software and I think that it may be complicated. He actually has it running on his Sun box and the Mac goes through THAT to the internet. Not something that I could set up!
I was pleased to note that he did not appear to be all that interested in what did pop up on the screen – just irritated that his Hot Wheels site wasn’t working!!
Thanks Beth for that info. My 4 year old likes hotwheels.com. We have parental controls and I haven’t been able to figure out how to adjust them. It blocks everything~ including your site Doni! LOL Haven’t figured that one out yet! Anyway I have the controls off a lot and have been known to forget to turn them back on. I do have another option that I do know how to work and that is blocking indivivual sites so I added that one to the list. Most of the sites on my list have been given to me by my darling teenagers :o). They have a gift of finding spyware! Anyway Thanks!