There’s Milk and Cereal On the Table

I came downstairs this morning to change Daniel’s diaper and found a box of cereal, a gallon of milk, and a mostly-eaten bowl of cereal on the table. The kids were all in the playroom jumping on the bean bag couch.

As I took Daniel over to the changing table, I called out an observation: “I see milk and cereal on the table.” I heard Carter accuse Logan*, who denied the accusation. Carter is not a very reliable witness, but I was still pretty sure that Logan was the culprit. He’s the most likely kid to have served himself cereal for breakfast plus I had seen him leave out the milk and cereal several times yesterday.

As I continued with the diaper change, I said, “I don’t want the milk to go bad. I don’t want Daniel to dump out the cereal.” The kids continued to jump and play in the playroom with no indication that they’d heard me.

After I finished the diaper change, I went into the playroom and quietly looked at Logan until I caught his eye. Then in a firm voice, I said, “There’s milk and cereal on the table.”

He immediately walked over to clean it up, commenting, “I didn’t do it.” I followed him as he put everything away and said, “Thank you for fixing the problem. You are a problem buster!”

There were a few drops of milk and cereal on the table so I got a wipe and said, “I’ll wipe the table. We are a good team.” He agreed and went back to play.

I love that I was able to have Logan take responsibility (in actions if not in words) for a problem without any yelling, blaming, or arguing. Just neutral observations, physical presence and teamwork. This is how I want to parent so I’m always happy when I do it!

*Names of foster kids have been changed to protect their privacy.

Toilet Learning

Someone on a Montessori Facebook group was asking for advice on handling a kid who is having pee accidents and resistant to prompting. I shared the following thoughts:

When my second son said he didn’t have to pee, I would say, “It’s still time for a toilet visit. Let’s sit on the toilet and see if any pee is ready to come out. Maybe it will just be a little bit.” I would slowly count to twenty and usually my instincts were right and he would end up peeing.

It’s definitely a tough balance to strike between when to insist and when to step back and give him the opportunity to go on his own.

With a situation like your grandson, I would probably try a few weeks of being very insistent (in a matter-of-factly way): it’s time for a toilet visit. And I would try to make it easier on him by timing the prompts for when he’s not in the middle of something (or allow him a few minutes wiggle room to finish it).

My goal there would be to make toilet visits the norm, rather than an optional thing that gets negotiated every time. Once that’s established I would look to gradually give him more room to be the one taking initiative.

But it’s hard! It’s not a linear experience and so much depends on the particular quirks of the kid!

I always have to remind myself that potty training is not linear. It’s not like crawling or walking where as soon as they figure it out, that’s all they want to do. With a milestone like choosing to go pee on their own, there can be a considerable gap between doing it for the first time and doing it all the time.

Fortunately, they do get there eventually!

Easy Paper Stomp Rockets

I love our stomp rocket. It’s one of those tricky toys that develops coordination and troubleshooting skills. You have to make sure you’re holding on to just the right part and then aim with your hand while stomping with your foot. There are lots of ways it can go wrong, but when you get everything right – stomp! pffffft! crash! hey-get-that-thing-out-of-the-kitchen-or-else!

It’s very satisfying.

The only downside is that the rockets it comes with are not really workable for the kids to use without supervision because they’re made of such delicious-looking foam.

The blue fins pictured here are the remains of a Jr. rocket, which has a white foam body with glued-on fins. The fins pop off really easily (even with responsible adult use) so I got a pack of the regular rockets to see if they’d be more durable.

The standard rockets are certainly an improvement, but if you look closely at the picture, you can see the tooth-marks in that luscious red bulb. Luke is the main culprit, but when I found Nathan with a big chunk of red in his mouth yesterday, I realized I had to put the rockets out of reach. I was sad about this because I want the kids to be able to experiment to their hearts content. I don’t want them to be limited to the times when I’m able to give them my full attention.

This morning I was watching Nathan wave the launcher around (I let them keep that part because it makes a good fire hose) and I had an idea. Why not make paper rockets? I looked online and found a fancy template. It’s overkill for our purposes, but it inspired me to create these babies:

They’re really dead simple. Just cut a piece of paper into three vertical strips. Wrap a strip around the end of the launcher and tape it at the bottom. Make it loose enough that it can slide off easily. Then fold the top of the tube down over itself and apply a second piece of tape. That’s it!

We don’t care much about range or aim around here. If it flies off the end of the tube and lands somewhere, it’s good enough for our purposes. But if you have older kids, I’m sure they’d enjoy experimenting with fins and aerodynamic tips and so forth. For Luke and Isabel, it’s a good opportunity to practice using scissors and tape.

For Nathan it’s a good opportunity to practice using teeth.

The Little Boy Who Peed On the Potty While His Mommy Wasn’t Looking

Luke has been having a lot of successful pees in the potty lately, but so far he hasn’t been going to the potty on his own initiative or even letting us know that he needs to pee.  The two of us together are a well-oiled potty visit machine, but since he doesn’t actually need my help with most of the steps, I’d really like to see him becoming more independent and take some responsibility for the process instead of having me guide him through every time.

A few days ago I started telling him a new story that goes something like this:

There was a little boy and he needed to pee. His mommy was in the kitchen cooking dinner. The little boy went into the bathroom and took off his pants all by himself. Then he sat on the potty. His mommy wasn’t there, she was in the kitchen. And the little boy peed on the potty, while his Mommy wasn’t looking. She didn’t even know that he was sitting on the potty!

I proceed with our typical potty visit story, which includes very detailed descriptions of the little boy pouring the pee into the potty and washing his hands.  I end by saying, “Then the little boy went out to the kitchen and said, ‘Mommy, Mommy I peed in the potty!’ And his mommy was very surprised. She was happy that the little boy had peed all by himself.”

I’ve told this story to Luke a few times now, but I wasn’t sure how well he understood it. This is the first time we’ve talked about the concept of surprising someone by doing something when they’re not paying attention so I didn’t know if he really got it.

But then today we had a fun potty adventure. First of all, he didn’t pee before his nap even though it had been a few hours since the last time he peed. I put him down for his nap, hoping that he’d stay dry but putting a towel under him just in case.

As soon as he woke up, I took him to the potty again but he still didn’t pee! I explained that we were about to drive to Grandma’s house and that I wanted him to pee first, so that he wouldn’t pee in the car seat, but he requested a break from the potty.

Claudiu: Do you want to go on the potty after your break?
Luke: Yeah.
Celeste: Will you go on the potty right after the car ride?
Luke: Yeah.
Claudiu: Do you say “yeah” to everything?
Luke: Yeah… everything.
Celeste: Do you ever say no?
Luke: No. [brief pause] Nah!

So we packed up to go to Grandma’s house and when we got there I brought him straight to the potty. This time he asked to “pee while Mommy’s not looking.” We were going outside to do some gardening in the front yard, so I brought the potty out to the porch. Two minutes later, I turned around and he was sitting and peeing!

I’m so excited that he took this new idea from the story and decided to put it into practice in his own life. Hopefully it wasn’t just a one time thing – I’d love for this level of independence to become the new normal. I know it’ll happen eventually, but with our new baby due in June it sure would be nice if I didn’t have to prompt and supervise every potty visit.

Montessori Moments: Learning to Ride a Tricycle

I heard Luke making frustrated squealing noises and came over to find him sitting on his tricycle. He was trying to get it going using the pedals, but they were in a position that made going forward tricky. I sat down on the couch nearby and offered to give him a push.

“No!” He cried and tried again to pedal, but it still didn’t work. He couldn’t get the pedals to go forwards and there was a table right behind the tricycle blocking him from getting the pedals into a better position by going backwards for a little bit.

I asked him if he wanted me to move the table out of the way, but again he said no. Then I suggested that he put his feet on the floor to push the tricycle forward a little bit and then try again with the pedals.

“I don’t want to put feet on the floor. I want to pedal the tricycle.” I sat and watched as he tried a few more times. Then he got down and pushed the table out of the way himself. Once he was back on the trike, the extra space he had created in the back gave him just enough wiggle room to get himself going forwards and he pedaled all the way across the room.

I love seeing his persistence even when he gets frustrated, and I love that he wasn’t interested in accepting my help. As hard as it is to sit and watch him struggle, it was completely worth it to see him solve the problem all by himself!

The Power of Taking Your Chance

I like to offer Luke choices as much as I can. I’ve found it to be a very helpful tool for gaining his cooperation when there’s something we need to do, like get dressed or get in the car. Often the choice I give him takes the form of “Do you want to do this by yourself or do you want me to do it for you?”

Here are a few examples:

• If we’re going upstairs I might say, “Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?”
• When it’s time to get in the car, I often say, “Do you want to climb into the car seat or do you want me to plop you in?”
• After a potty visit, I’ll hold out his pants and say, “Do you want to step in or do you want me to put your pants on?”

This works well most of the time. Sometimes he’s happy to have me do the thing for him, and sometimes he prefers to do it himself. I’m fine either way. After all, it tends to be faster and more convenient when I do the thing, but I’m also glad when he chooses to be independent because I do want to encourage that.

I started to run into a problem, however, where he’d say one thing but do another. Instead of climbing into the car, he’d examine the tires. Instead of putting his legs into the underpants, he’d put in his arms:

Cutting Strawberries with a Wavy Chopper

Now that we have home-grown strawberries in the fridge, I was finally motivated to order a wavy chopper.  My little buddy can’t get enough of it!  We had a couple of chopping sessions the other day and they were a big hit.

I thought he’d stand on a chair but he preferred to sit on the table

I pinched off the leaves and cut the strawberries in half initially, so they wouldn’t wiggle on him so much.  I sliced the first strawberry while he watched and then gave him the chopper. He struggled a bit with the angle at first, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

I took this video towards the end of our cutting session, after he’d learned how to position the blade for a nice solid cut. I love his level of concentration!

I had a bowl on hand to hold the cut pieces, but he kept taking them out to keep cutting them.  After I gave him a few more strawberries to cut, he was willing to put some pieces in the bowl.

Last but not least, we ate them! He likes feeding me.

At one point a berry stuck to the blade and he put it to his mouth to eat it off. I stopped him from doing that and took the opportunity to talk about the blade being sharp. He gave it a few gentle pokes while looking at me. (He knows about sharp from when I let him handle pins.)

As he gets more comfortable cutting soft fruit like berries, I will let him try cutting firm stuff like carrots and potatoes. The blade is not dangerously sharp, but he could nick himself if he puts a finger in the wrong place. It’s a good tool for starting to learn knife safety.

I have two small butter knives and a serrated spreader waiting in the wings.  They make a good stepping-stone to full-fledged knife usage because they use the same motions but don’t have sharp points or blades. Their small size makes them easier for small hands to manipulate.  Again, I’ll start him on soft things and increase the challenge gradually as I see him gaining mastery.

Today I want to add bananas and cantaloupe to the mix. He can help me make fruit salad to bring to our play date!

I also want to get him a low table to make activities like this more accessible. We had one that was a great size but it was only made of particle board so it broke after a few months of use as a weaning table.  I’ve been on the look-out since then but haven’t seen any good candidates at the thrift store. I should put more effort into searching and maybe try Craigslist — I think it’s time to set up a dedicated buddy space in the kitchen so he can do more cooking! (And maybe he will be less interested in ransacking the utensil drawer if he has his own things to do.)

Montessori Moments: Opening a Container

If you give a buddy a straw posting activity, he’s going to put all the straws in. And once he finishes putting them in, he’s going to ask you to take them out again.

I really like the Montessori concept of “help me do it by myself,” where you aim to provide a child with the smallest amount of help needed to overcome their difficulty, leaving it to them to do the parts they’re already able to do.

But when my son would bring me the container of straws to open, my default was to grab it from him, pop the lid off, dump out the straws, put the lid back on, and then finally hand it back.

A few weeks ago I finally stopped to think: “Wait a second, I wonder how much of this he can do?”

Montessori Moments: Serving a Snack

As I was getting my little buddy a snack this morning, I decided to let him serve himself from the container and see what happened.  There were only nine or ten pieces left so I figured he couldn’t make too much of a mess!