The Daily Hailey

I know all parents have to make tough decisions about how we raise our kids. I don’t really like the metaphor “choose your battles” because I don’t like to think of my relationships including fighting. We’re always learning and figuring, and yes, I’m sure a lot of you have private opinions about things you would do differently than me. I fully respect that 😀 We can’t all do things the same. If all of our kids were the same, life would be boring. I digress…

We put a lot of significance around Dekker’s manners. Pleases and thankyous are necessities, and too much whining isn’t acceptable. It seems strict, but I think politeness is a great thing to strive towards. This evening, on our drive home from my parents house, Dekker asked for a snack. Kind of. Straight out of the driveway, he says loudly “Snack.” Huh. In a lot of cases, I just give him one. He often eats snacks in the van. But he had really just finished supper, and I figured he could wait until we got on the highway at the very least, and then see if he was actually hungry. So I said “Just wait a few minutes please.” He started fussing like crazy. I asked for his manners and he just shouted “snack” at me louder. Its so cute that he thinks that would work, haha 😉 So for probably the first time, I didn’t give him any more chances and I just said he couldn’t have a snack until we got home. He cried, but recovered within moments, and said “Toy.” Again, no manners. I asked what toy he wanted, and he was saying something I couldn’t quite understand. I asked him to repeat it and he flipped out again, shouting for a toy. So, bracing myself for a long drive home, I said “Ok, no toys either. You have whined too much, and you haven’t used your manners. So you can’t have any snacks or toys for the drive home.” Well, he cried and cried and cried. He didn’t scream and fight and kick, but he cried. He overcame it, and just watched out the window for a bit. Probably ten minutes later, I heard him quietly ask “Toy?” I really wanted to give him one, but he hadn’t used manners again, and I NEEDEd to stick to my guns. So I said “I’m sorry, honey, no toys for the drive, remember?” He replied with “ya” and we drove along silently.

By george, I think he’s got it! I don’t expect everything to be smooth now for the rest of our lives, haha, but it was nice to see him really grasp consequence.

When we got home, we all went into his room and get the kids in fresh diapers and jammies. At the point where both kids were only in diapers, Dekker went and lay on his tummy right near Laela and asked “Ticky La’s tummy?” Of course he could! He continued to ask about different places to ticky. Ears, hair, belly button, legs, even her bum 🙂 It was adorable. At one point he bent down to rub noses with her and she walloped him in the face. Like, she really connected. He came up giggling and went in for another. It was probably the first time she kind of roughed him up and he let her. She pulled his hair and scratched at his face, and he giggled and said things like “La smash eyes.” Don’t get me wrong, we would try to control her, but he wanted to be close to her sooo badly! Most of the fun ended when Laela, laying on the floor, was beating her own belly, and Dekker reached over the smacked her. The second he did it, he leaned back and looked at me. I knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her, but it needed to be said.

“Please don’t hit Laela, Dekker.”

That one sentence seemed to really crush him, and he cried. Luckily, Laela didn’t. If anything, it seemed to catch her by surprise, but she wasn’t upset or hurt. I took Dekker on my lap and told him we knew it was an accident, and he wasn’t in any trouble, but its important to say sorry when you hurt someone. He apologized after a bit of coaxing, and even said he loved her. He felt awful. 

Playtime was eventually over and I was taking Laela out of the room so Brady could put Dekker down for the night. Poor little D wanted Laela to stay. “La touch Detter’s hair again! Detter ticky La’s tummy! La! Bouncy!” Anything to keep her there. It warmed by heart to see him so enamoured with her.

I love these kids. I really couldn’t be happier with my family. I hope you all feel the same way about yours 🙂