Big sisters in charge! As it turns out Taylor and I have a few things in common. We are both the first born in the family, we are both big sisters, and we both have a little brother that is only 15-16 months younger than us. I was recently going through some pictures from my childhood and came across a rather familiar sight and so I thought I’d share. :)

In the pictures below Taylor and I were both two years old and Chris and Joshua were both around one year.

I guess it’s true what they say- the more things change, the more they stay the same!

1984

2011

PS: The mouth wide open thing must be genetic. :)

So while Jeff’s mom was in town, Jeff and I planned a one night excursion to New York City. Jeff was already in NYC for work, so I caught a train from DC to NYC, we had an amazing dinner in the theater district and then walked to our show at the Amsterdam Theater. We saw Mary Poppins and thought it was a great show. It was lively, colorful, and the acting and singing was really impressive. After the show we thought we should get some sightseeing in so we went to the Empire State Building and saw the views of Manhattan at night. It was pretty spectacular!

Here are some photos from our night away!

That’s Penn station on the left. Our hotel, New Yorker, was actually just down the street. Very convenient. And a nice hotel.

Mary Poppins!

Streets of NYC

Our hotel from the back side. Which, incidentally, was also just around the corner from the NYPD midtown precinct. Made me feel a little more safe. :)

 

 

And this is why I love being a stay-at-home mommy…

Joshua playing peek-a-boo

Makes my heart so happy to be their mommy. :)

For Joshua’s birthday we got a helium tank for balloons. With all the balloons around the house and because my children are obsessed with balloons I figured it was a perfect opportunity to take pictures.

Here are a few of the pictures I got.

We celebrated Joshua’s birthday over Father’s Day weekend while Jeff’s family was in town. Can’t believe my little man is already one year old. It’s true what they say: “The days are long, but the years are short.”

Love you, Joshua! Happy Birthday!

Father’s Day the whole Hunt crew participated in the Dash-4-Dads. Jeff got his Father’s Day gift – a BOB dualie so he can run all these races with the kids. Jeff and the kids ran the 4 mile race and the rest of us all walked the one mile fun run.

Over Father’s Day weekend we had almost the whole Hunt crew in town to visit. While they were here we took a trip to Alexandria to visit George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. I think Taylor might have had the most fun of all. We went to the back side of Mount Vernon (the side with all the great views of the Potomac) and just let her go. She literally ran around the backyard for about an hour non-stop and then had a major meltdown when it was time to go. I think she needed another hour of running around before she would have been close to expending all her energy. :)

Here are a few pictures of our day.

At the beginning of June we were so excited to host my brother, Chris, and his wife and son, Erin and Alex, for their first visit to Washington DC.

Taylor and Joshua loved having their older cousin Alex around to play together.  Here are a few pictures from their visit.

A visit to the White House.

Catching lightening bugs.

Playing at the water fountain.

Matching faux-hawks for Alex and Josh.

Sidewalk chalk.

Thanks for visiting Uncle Chris, Auntie Erin and Alex. We hope you come back soon!

Parenting. It’s one of the most important roles we will ever have in our lifetime that a majority of us have never been formally educated in doing well. In fact, most of us would probably consider ourselves ahead of the curve if we have watched a couple episodes of “Super Nanny” or voluntarily taken a class on parenting offered at a local church or community center. I know that’s true for Jeff and me. We’ve taken a few classes offered by our church and I joined a MOPs group (Mothers of Preschoolers) in large part to be able to meet and get ideas and encouragement on parenting from other women who have young kids like me. Of course Jeff and I both came to our marriage with ideas about how to parent based on our own experiences growing up, but it didn’t take long for us to figure out that we needed some professional help in order to learn how to parent well. After all, we only get one shot at it. If we mess up there’s no redo. It’s important to us that we put an effort into learning how to parent well now, while our kids are young. So it was in this spirit, that we started reading a book this past spring by Dr. James Dobson called, The New Strong-Willed Child.

They say that if you are the parent of a strong-willed child you don’t need anybody to tell you- you already know. Well, it didn’t take a book to tell us that Taylor is strong-willed. We knew that pretty much from the day she was born. If we ever had any doubts, they were put to rest when Joshua joined the family. The difference in temperament between Taylor and Joshua is pretty obvious. Joshua has always been a very easy going baby, he’s low maintenance, easily satisfied, thrives on a schedule. Taylor, on the other hand, is stubborn, spirited, high maintenance, and out to blaze her own path in life. Of course it was that strong spirit that helped her get through the NICU, but it’s also that strong spirit that is now manifesting itself in the body of our emotional two year old daughter. Needless to say we were more than willing to seek additional counsel on how to discipline in a way that teaches right from wrong without crushing our little one’s God given spirit.

Overall, I was very impressed with Dobson’s book. The “new” version includes a lot of his responses to feedback from the original book which was published in the late 70s. My plan for this post is to simply highlight the best parts of the book with the hope that if you have any strong-willed children, but don’t have the time to read the book, maybe you will be inspired and educated on how to become a more effective parent.

Dobson detailed six steps to shaping a child’s will:

1. “Begin Teaching Respect for Authority While Children are Very Young

• This does not mean being harsh, threatening, or criticizing your child. These are all destructive and counterproductive. A mean or angry parent causes resentment.
• Parents should display confident firmness. They are the boss. They are in charge. Once a child understands who is in charge, he/she can be held accountable for behaving in a respectful manner.

2. Define the Boundaries Before They are Enforced

• The child should know what is and is not acceptable behavior before he/she is held responsible for it.

3. Distinguish Between Willful Defiance and Childish Irresponsibility

• Children will regularly spill things, lose things, break things, forget things, and mess up things. These are examples of childish irresponsibility. When accidents happen patience and tolerance are the order of the day.
• When a child defies the authority of the parent after being told not to do something and they do it anyway, that behavior represents a willful, haughty spirit and a determination to disobey. When your child challenges you in a moment like that you must take charge and defend your right to lead.

4. Reassure and Teach After the Confrontation is Over

• After a conflict, tell your child why they were punished and how they can avoid trouble next time. This is a teachable moment.
• Give hugs. Offer reassurance of your love for them.

5. Avoid Impossible Demands

• Never punish for something that is an impossible demand on your child.

6. Let Love Be Your Guide

• Mistakes are inevitable, but if your relationship is founded on genuine love it is likely to be healthier.”

In discussing what it means to shape the will Dobson made a very important distinction between the will and the spirit. The will, he said, is someone’s “deeply ingrained desire to have his or her way”, while “the human spirit reflects the sense of worthiness that a child feels.” Dobson goes on to say, that “the will is made of titanium and steel, the human spirit, on the other hand, is the most fragile characteristic in human nature and is especially vulnerable to rejection, ridicule, and failure. It must be handled with care.”

Dobson says that the most common mistake parents make when disciplining their children is acting out of anger. He writes, “Anger does not influence behavior….By contrast disciplinary action does cause behavior to change. Not only does anger not work, I am convinced that it produces a destructive kind of disrespect in the minds of our children. They perceive that our frustration is caused by our inability to control the situation.” As an illustration of proper authority, Dobson gives the example of a police officer or judge, neither scream, cry, or criticize; they do not rely on anger to influence our behavior. They don’t need to, they can make our days better or worse and that influences our behavior and demands respect. “Their serenity and confidence are part of the aura of authority that creates respect.” Take away: you don’t need anger to control children. In fact, anger will probably hurt the situation more than help it.

An entire chapter in The New Strong-Willed Child is devoted to discussing the needs of children when it comes to discipline for each stage of life through the teen years. I focused primarily on the 2-3 years of age category because it’s more applicable to our family, but if you have children that are other ages, I recommend you get the book and read those portions of the chapter for advice on discipline. For the 2-3 year old category, Dobson remarks, that instilling obedience and respect for authority is most important when children are young. He says that when young toddlers win conflicts they become even more difficult to handle in the second and third years. He says that in these years we must establish ourselves as a “benevolent boss: mean what you say and say what you mean”

Finally, according to Dobson, there are two important messages that our children need to know before they turn 3 years old: 1) that we love then more than they can ever imagine and 2) because we love them we must teach them to obey. It is the only way we can take care of them and protect them from things that might hurt them. It all boils down to two words, which are really the two broad themes of the book: LOVE and CONTROL. Love and control must be in balance. “A concentration on love to the exclusion of control usually breeds disrespect and contempt,” while an oppressive home creates resentful children who feel unloved. “The objective for the toddler years is to strike a balance between mercy and justice, affection and authority, love and control.”

I hope these nuggets of wisdom from Dobson’s book, offer inspiration for you, like they did for me.

Blessings!

 

Today we took the kids to Picture People for a photo shoot. This was our first studio portrait session and it very well could be the last- at least for a very long time. The session started out great. The kids were on their best behavior. BUT after about 8 shots things went down hill pretty quickly. We had just about everything you can think of to try and get their attention or keep them entertained, but it turns out our (my) well thought out plan backfired on us. It seemed like every time we pulled something out of the bag it caused more chaos. In the end, an amazing photographer named Kim, with a VERY baby/toddler friendly voice, was able to salvage our photo shoot. Hurray!

A few lessons learned:

1. Even the most well thought out picture plan does not work when you’ve got toddlers.

2. My one year old can handle taking studio pictures WAY better than my two year old.

3. Even the most stressful/chaotic photo shoot can actually result in pretty good pictures.