discipline

Oh, if only disciplining 4-year-olds was as cute as doing it when they're one-and-a-half...  Levi had a short stint of being a sweetie-pie and is now back to testing the boundaries.  His big thing lately is throwing everything.  Last night he was in his high chair finishing up supper while Mike and I were starting to clean up.  He threw some food, we said "no", he did it again, so I went over and he got a swat on the arm.  The bottom lip comes out, starts quivering, and his eyes fill up with tears.  Mike tells him to say "sorry" to me, and he very tearfully says, "Sorry."  Then, after I say, "I love you.", I get a sad, "I wuv you."  Gah!  It's too much!  I can't handle the cuteness.

Levi and I have quite the bedtime routine.  I guess this is one of those things that's different with a singleton than with twins (or at least different than when a room is being shared).  I've generally avoided getting "stuck" in a routine like this with any of the boys, partly because I don't want the child to 'need' a specific routine in order to fall asleep, and honestly, partly because once it's time for the kids to go to bed, I just want them in bed, I don't want to prolong things.  BUT, I am really enjoying Levi and I's special time at night.  Mike gets him changed and ready for bed (during which he is generally quite upset thinking that Daddy is going to bring him upstairs and not Mommy).  I take him up to his room and we sit in the recliner and rock for a while.  (I set him in his crib first so I can get his sleep sack on and turn on the heater and humidifier, and he just keeps saying, "Rock?  Rock?" until I get him back out.)  I don't rock him to sleep, we just have some nice quiet time together.  :)  This is the only time of the day that he'll just sit on my lap!  The rest of the day he'll sit on my lap for about two seconds and then squirm down, but at bedtime he just sits there nice and it's pretty neat.  I'll ask him to sing to me and he'll sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and I'll sing to him some, too.  When I do put him in his bed he lays down and says, "Boo!", meaning he wants me to get down and "hide" next to the crib.  I do that and then we give kisses between the crib rails.  :)  (I can't wait for him to read this when he's about sixteen!)

Levi has JUST started actually sitting for a book.  Up until this point whenever you tried to read a book he would insist on shutting it and getting down right away.  But, last night he sat through a whole book (You know, like maybe a whole two minutes.), and today he sat while we looked through a touch and feel book.  Logan definitely seems to be more of a book lover than Caleb.  They'll both look at books and sit for stories, but Caleb just doesn't have as much patience for it.

We have had crazy snow and cold here lately!  It's been too cold to play outside.  Yesterday Bible Study was cancelled and for some reason the gym didn't have childcare, so I decided we'd make a trip to Meijer - get groceries, see the fish, and get a free cookie all in one stop?  Yes, please!  Although, every time I take all three to the store with me I'm reminded why I don't do it very often.  We still have a long ways to go on learning self-control....  So, it actually worked out okay that I couldn't get to the gym yesterday because I got quite the work-out just going through the store with the kids.  By the end I was hot, tired, and didn't mind at all going back out into the frigid temps.  Sun is out today and it's a tad warmer, so maybe we'll go out for a bit this afternoon.