It's That Time of Year Again. . .

General Conference is almost upon us, and I realized yesterday that I have not done anything to prepare my kids. We have not talked about prophets, apostles, or why we will be listening to them. I can't believe it is conference time already!

So, today, I made up a quick worksheet for them to complete while we are listening. Well, okay, it's not really a worksheet. All I did was take some pictures of the Prophets and Apostles and put them on a word document with their names under them.

We'll call it "hide and go seek." The basic gist of it is that when a new speaker comes on, I'll ask the kids to match the man on the TV with a man on one of the pages I will have taped up on the wall. Once they do, they get to put a sticker on his tie. Then I'll go over his name with them. Easy, peasy, and since we won't have it last any longer than that, they can go right back to playing. These kids of mine aren't old enough to take notes or identify themes among the talks; all I want them to do is to begin to recognize the importance of these great men in our lives.

If anyone is interested in my low-maintenance approach, I put the documents online at scribd. They are very basic--not flashy, fancy, or cutesy, just the way I like it. I had to do this in a minimum amount of pages because I will be printing these off at the library (a new printer is on our long list of things to buy), but I'm sure you could put one person per page if you are feeling ambitious.

HERE you go. Have at it. Let me know if any of you do anything else with your kids. I'd love to get some ideas for next conference!

This Doesn't Look Good for my Sanity. . .

William loves playing around on the floor. He can roll and wriggle around to almost anywhere. Last night he started showing us some new skills.

He stays like this for most of the time.

And yes, he knows exactly what he's about to do to me.

Don't do it, William! You're only just barely six months old!

Oh, no!

Well, it is pretty fun to see him figuring things out. He is still a ways away from being able to crawl, but I didn't think he was as close as this!

That was hard work--William has to get his thumb fix before starting up again.

Primary Wiggles

Today was our ward's Primary Program (a special church sacrament meeting where all the children from 3-12 put on a religiously-themed program for their parents and other ward members).

It is always fun to watch the little kids wiggling about--45 minutes is a very long time for a three year old to sit perfectly still. Everett is the youngest child by about 6 months, and you can certainly tell just by watching him.

Two minutes into the program, Everett looked to his right and noticed that he was within arm's reach of the sacrament table. What is on the sacrament table? The sacrament bread, covered by a white cloth. Everett, quick as a sparrow, reached his little arm up and under that cloth and brought an entire handful of bread back to his mouth. He chewed happily. I shook my head vigorously at him; Everett grinned and shook his head right back at me. A few other members of the audience were trying to get the attention of Everett's primary teacher who was sitting right by him but was looking the opposite direction. Finally another teacher tapped him on the shoulder, and he leaned down and gently put a stop to Everett's mischief.

Fortunately Everett didn't help himself to any more snacks. He did, however, do a whole bunch of entertaining things, such as dragging his mouth back and forth along the podium wall. Joel and I spent the majority of the time shaking our heads at him (and hiding our amused expressions). Everett responded by shaking his head right back at us--as he kept on doing whatever it was that he was doing.

At the end of the program, all the kids stayed on the stand while the Bishop came up to close the meeting with a few words. Everett decided he had had enough, and I think his teacher agreed, because Everett made a swift exit and returned back to our pew.

What a funny kid. We had a talk after church about how and why we should treat the sacrament items with reverence, and Everett understood. I can't help but wish in a small way that Everett will be three again for the primary program next year--it sure made for an interesting church meeting.

Hardee-Har-Har

Everett has been enjoying joke-telling, or rather punchline-telling, as he would rather have you ask the first part of the joke so he can answer and laugh. These are the jokes he finds funny. Try them out on any three-year-old you know; they'll probably be a big hit!

What do firemen put in their soup?

Firecrackers!

What did one egg say to the other egg?

Let's get crackin'!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side!

Why did the bubble gum cross the road?

Because it was stuck to the chicken!

What's green and loud?
A froghorn.

Why did the cookie go to see the doctor?
He was feeling crummy!

What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?
Time to get a new fence!

The Influence of Friends

Until this summer, Ashley had no idea what a princess was, what they do, or how to be like one. This all changed when the kids spent some time at the house of some friends of ours. The kids are lucky to have friends whose houses they love to play at, and I am lucky that I like their moms so much. It makes it fun for all of us.

At one house, in which a few older girls live, my kids get the royal treatment. The girls would take my kids to the dress-up clothes and deck them out in a grand alter-ego for the day. Everett was always a puffy, muscular Spiderman. Ashley became. . .a princess.

Add to their costumes their own set of wheels, and they were in heaven.

Popsicles make everything even better.

Yum.

Now, when Everett and Ashley decide to imagine and pretend for a while, they always start out like this.

Everett: Ashley, let's pretend! I'll be SPIDERMAN! (he poses with his legs spread and his muscles flexed.)

Ashley (while twirling and looking at her imagined dress): I'm a princess, I'm a princess, I'm a princess!

Me: Ashley, what does a princess do?

Ashley: In a castle. With a dragon!

I don't think Ashley has any concept of the fact that if there are princesses, then there are princes to romance, and that that is what the dream is all about. This is fine. I'm not going to start her on it until she asks. Right now, her view that princesses get to wear beautiful dresses and hang out with dragons in magnificent castles is fine by me.

On a different note. . .

Two conversations with Everett that I don't want to forget:

Everett, looking at a map of the world:
"What is this place?"

Me: That is South America. All of these places are called continents. We live here, in North America. This big one is Asia, this island is Australia, this funny one with the big round bump on the side is Africa, and this one that looks like fat tree branches is Europe.

Everett (looking confused): "My. . .up?"

Me: "No, Europe."

Everett: "Yeah. My up."

* * * * *

Everett and I were sitting on his bed. I was talking to him about the importance of saying personal prayers, and that Heavenly Father is always listening. He said he was ready to say his prayer.

I watched as he bowed his head and performed the signs of the cross (albeit incorrectly) and said a jumble of words having to do with God. I don't think he even knew what he was saying. All I knew was that he learned it from school, where they pray at the end of every class.

It was a great opportunity. Everett knows the name of our church, and he knows that there are different churches around town, so I explained that the school was at a different church from ours, and that they pray a little differently than we are used to. I told him it was okay to pray with them that way at class, and that we will pray at home the way we do at our church. This may be inconsistent, but there is no need to make things overly complicated for a three year old.

I've been wondering when he would start picking these things up. He is more observant than I thought! I am excited that he has the opportunity to go to school at a different church, because I want him to grow up with respect, admiration, and love for people who are different than him. This is a good starting point for him to be able to recognize and accept some of those differences, but for him to also begin to understand that we share a lot more similarities with other people than we might originally think.

Advice, Please

It's not too often that I ask for advice (I blame it on oldest child syndrome), but I am at a bit of a loss with our newest issue.

Everett has been potty trained for over a year, and generally has been doing great. Lately he has been having a lot of accidents, and even he when he doesn't have a full accident, he is always walking around with a little wet spot on the front of his pants because he constantly goes just a little bit. It isn't enough to always warrant a change of clothes (I couldn't keep up with the laundry well enough for that), but it is enough that it is rather annoying.

Here are the particulars:

1) He usually only has accidents away from home (including in the car). He had two at the YMCA this morning and two at Preschool.

2) He doesn't seem to notice when he has an accident, but when I ask him if he felt it coming out, he always says yes.

3) I have tried hard to not make him feel guilty when he has an accident, because I don't think that is the right approach, but he doesn't seem to feel any shame whatsoever. He is almost four--isn't he old enough to be a little embarrassed, especially in front of peers? (You moms with boys are probably shaking your head with an emphatic "No".)

Here are some of the reasons he may be doing this (and why or why not I think they are correct):

1) He has had a lot of change lately with the move and William being born. I don't think this has affected his potty-training, however, because his regressions have not coincided with the time periods after these events.

2) He needs more attention. This is possible; there is only one of me with three kids in this house. But he gets every afternoon alone with me while Ashley and William are sleeping, and I always involve Everett if I am doing something with the other kids.

3) He just doesn't care. I think this is the most likely reason. The question is, how do I get him to care? Here is what we've done:

• Have him take a shower every time he has an accident in the hopes that the inconvenience of it all will make it worth it to him to keep dry.
• Constantly ask/remind him to go.
• Ignore it.
• Make him change clothes by himself (no help=no attention).
• In our lesser moments, get pretty frustrated.
• Lots of positive feedback when he keeps dry (he is very proud of himself when I pick him up from somewhere and he didn't have an accident).

We've tried to be consistent with our reactions, but life does not always facilitate consistency. Sometimes I'm feeding William or taking care of Ashley and I can't always handle Everett the way I want to.

Basically, I've been waiting for him to grow out of this. But he has been getting worse (4 accidents a day isn't the norm, but he does have them pretty frequently).

Has anyone else handled this with their son? What did you do? What worked? What didn't work? Should I just keep waiting this out or is there something I can do now? I don't want him to keep having accidents, especially no away from home. It's not fair to the people who are watching him!