it’s here. Spring is in full swing in Bern. People keep saying it could snow until Easter but the plants and flowers (and me) are choosing to ignore that. We have tons of daffodils and tulips blooming around our home. The tree in our atrium has turned from giant pussy-willow looking buds to beautiful white flowers. Talk about a fresh of breath air after the long winter. The winter wasn’t particularly harsh just long and grey.

We have been in the atrium and yard eating lunches and playing as much as possible. On the weekend we have been getting lots of outside time with hikes to the woods and river and riding bikes on our sidewalk. Owen is exploring his new world with the assistance of his brother. I have been working on potting herbs and flowers over the last couple of weeks. Here is a funny progression of pictures to see what I caught Owen doing….

“What do you mean I can’t undig the flowers???? I am HELPING!”

And some pretty Spring shots. The tulips are just opening up today so I will post some pictures of those soon.

The week before last we had visitors and Jackson and Owen both seemed to be coming down with something. Owen woke up from a nap with a fever and was generally miserable. He started waking up each hour in the night and carried on for 4 straight nights. It was very reminiscent of when he had the double ear infection he had in December.  We talked to our pediatrician but the office was closed from Thurs through Monday so we had to wait it out over the weekend. They told us to take Owen to the ER if we felt he wasn’t improving. In the midst of Owen feeling miserable Jackson heard us analyzing and wondering about Owen’s ears. About the time on Saturday morning that Seth had to take Owen to the ER, because he still had a high fever and was in pain, Jackson started talking about having a sore ear himself. Looking back I feel horrible but at the time it seemed obvious that he was just trying to get in on the attention and he was very disappointed to not be going to the hospital himself. (Although his interest in going waned when I told him Owen wasn’t going in an ambulance and it wasn’t an emergency). By the middle of the weekend Seth touched Jackson’s ear and he erupted in wails. By Tues morning when we got into the doctor Owen’s ears were just fine and Jackson was the one with a fiery ear infection. And on top of the infection he had so much blockage in his ears that we will be going back tomorrow for the doctor to remove all of the junk. I can tell you I am not looking forward to that!

Back to the title “treasure”. At the end of Jackson’s checkup he got to pick something from the prize bin. I usually try to give guidance but this time I was bundling Owen and trying to hurry Jackson out the door for lunch.  He was lingering over the prize bin, slowly and carefully digging through, picking what he found to be the most valuable treasure. I didn’t want to minimize his excitement (or tell him I would likely toss it in a few days) but we had to get going because of teethy fussy babe was biting my shoulder to get out of there. When we were halfway out the door I asked what he chose. A gaudy, gold ring with a heart-shaped red gem. He beamed as he talked about it and put it on his thumb. He said, “mom, in the morning when you say “put your socks on and put on your clothes ” , you can also say, “Put on your ring, Jackson” “. He wore it for the remaining hour until nap and asked if he could sleep with it.  I agreed but only if he laid it on his pillow, I didn’t want him to wear it and scratch his face.   After nap he walked upstairs to find me and again had that beaming grin as he slid it back on his thumb and said “mom, I’m wearing my ring”. He looked at it off and on to make sure it was still there and at one point realized that the gem had fallen out. He retraced his steps but much to his dismay he could not find the precious stone. He finally decided he could still wear it without the red bling.

Since last week we have lost and found the ring a zillion times. As I swept on Saturday I was about to shake out the dust pan when I glanced down and a dot of red-bling caught my eye. It would have been easier to just let it go out with the dust. It is a pain to continue the hunt for a toy that is dangerous for Owen and quite honestly hideous…and made for a little girl. But, I stopped myself and called to Jackson. He was thrilled to see my discovery! “Mom, you solved the mystery”

Wait, stop. This momma isn’t gonna buy anything. or at least not a string of things to keep you feeling happy if one thing breaks.

We have sung this song a zillion times with our boys. Well, mainly with Jackson when he was younger. But sometime around the time that Jackson hit his toddler prime I became very disenchanted with it. He was totally self-absorbed, as he should have been as a 2 something and spent every ounce of his energy to get what he wanted. And somehow, at some point I sang that song and it hit me that I was feeding him a message I wasn’t sure I wanted him to have. Don’t worry if this doesn’t work because we will buy you something else, and if that doesn’t work, don’t worry…we will just find something better. The other message is if you are quiet I will get you what you want.

Now just to clarify, I am not against a good bribe. There are times and places when bribes are a NECESSITY. You may not agree and that is okay. But I find there are times when a distraction, i.e. a piece of candy or something unexpected, can be both pacifying and motivating. And yes, at least in our home there are times when certain members of the family need encouragement to be quiet or motivated to obedience, whichever the case may be.

The truth is we do love to give our children gifts. And gifts are fun and satisfying. But they aren’t going to fulfill us. There is comfort for a child in knowing that their parents can provide for them. But I think we are doing our children a disservice if we let them think we can fix anything and provide everything.  Because the truth is we can’t. And I am sort of a perfectionist so this is hard to say. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind my kids being proud of their mom and thinking she is superwoman…but I am not. As Jackson has grown I have been talking to him about how the things we have are blessings. I don’t hesitate to say, Daddy has been working extra hard at work to make money for us to use and we have decided we will use some of our money to buy such and such. I don’t want him to think he can get anything he wants. Sure I want him to be happy and as a parent I do want to give him things he will enjoy but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best thing for him. I want him to see a correlation between work and earning, and I want him to see the joy in unexpected blessings.

And if you sing this song, sing away. But for now while my kids are in the “me”, “mine”, “all my own”, “more”, “it’s just not fair” phase of life I think I am going to look for some other tunes! Because this momma is too tired to go hunting for a mocking bird that sings, shiny diamond ring, a looking glass, a billy goat and a horse and cart.

When I was working, (yes, at one point in my life I was a working, productive in the thinking kind of way, woman) I used this website regularly. I just recently hunted it down again for some new insights into our bustling toddler world around here. Because so many of my friends are dealing with this phase of life or will someday in the future I decided to post a link for you.

Zero to Three

And for your viewing enjoyment here are my crazies just yesterday.

This chair has become quite a source of frustration lately. I love the chair I just don’t love my 13 month old mounting it and thinking it’s for rock climbing. Anyhow, that has been one of our “Zero to 3” behaviors of the week! He has become more stable on it so I am having to fight it less.

and because I took Owen’s picture in this chair Jackson was dying for a turn….so here are a few shots of him entertaining.

this is Jackson acting out a sad face.

We are dealing with all sorts of sibling rivalry, jealousy, lack of gentleness. etc this week. This too shall pass!