Thanksgiving Edible Craft

Richie enjoying the finished product.

     For my family, Thanksgiving has always been the biggest holiday.  It's usually 2-3 days of cooking and extended family.  Over the past few years, my cousin has introduced the cutest Reese's cup turkeys as a favor for each person's plate.  Now that I have children, this has become a fun "craft" that they can participate in on our busy Thursday.  I would suggest this for children aged two and a half to three years.  My son Richie absolutely loves it, but please remember your patience.  It's candy!  No you can't eat it now, you have to wait!  Not the easiest thing for a two or three year old to understand, but if you're patient they'll get it.

Here's some directions with some photos (please forgive the quality, my camera died, so these are taken with my iPhone):

Ingredients: 

• Black decorating icing
• Orange or Yellow decorating icing
• Candy Corn (5-7 pieces per turkey)
• Reese's cups (1.5 per turkey)

Using the orange icing, attach half of

a Reese's cup to a whole Reese's cup.

Cut the smallest portion of one candy 

corn off and discard (or eat it!).

Use orange icing to adhere fattest part 

of cut candy corn to Reese's cup.

Attach a whole piece of candy corn to cut

piece of candy corn also using orange icing.

Use a small knife and black icing to make two small
eyes on the head of the turkey. (adults only!)
 If you'd like to try letting your child complete
 this task, I would suggest using a toothpick.

Cute little guy with eyes complete!

Use orange icing to attach each "feather"
(candy corn).  Use between three and five.
Whatever you're comfortable with.

A Complete turkey should look something like this.
 How cute!

Now comes the fun part!  It's time to eat it!

Nap-time Madness!

     So nap time has been one of my biggest struggles with both of my children so far.  For some strange reason, no child ever wants to take a nap.  When they grow into adults, they will wish (like the rest of us) that there was nap time!  Being firm is not my strongest suit, but I've been working on it diligently.
     Richie basically ruled the roost when it came to nap time.  He used every delay tactic in the book to get out of his mid-day rest and I fell into each and every one of his traps.  He would cry, "Sippy!  Sippy!"  What would I do?  Like a good waitress, I would hurry and fetch him his glass of milk.  One more story.  Turn the AC on.  I'm not tired.  Really, anything that might work.  When I tried to be firm he would call out, "Mama! Mama!"  He would break my heart with his hysterical crying.  It was as if he was being tortured.  Richie would go to such extremes as to make himself vomit in order to get out of sleeping- or at least sleeping alone.  Needless to say, Richie won out most of the time, and I struggled for quite a while trying to figure new clever ways to get him to sleep.
     As far as Lily goes, I have been much more diligent with her nap times and bed times.  From about four-six months of age, I started letting Lily cry herself to sleep after a nice bed time or nap time ritual.  After tons of reassurance and time, it started to take only about five-ten minutes for her to fall asleep.  She never once slept in our bed.  In fact, she even refused if I tried to take her in bed with me- she wanted her own crib in her own room.  This was fantastic.  When she got too tall for her crib, at about eighteen months, we moved her to a low toddler bed.  This went pretty smoothly at first.  Until one evening, she realized she could just get up and walk out of her bed as she pleased, there was nothing to stop her!
     What do you think happened to my diligence?  It seemed to have disappeared, as if I were clueless which way to turn next!  So, I calmly reassessed the situation and vowed that my TODDLER was not going to run bed time, I WOULD.  So, after almost 2 hours of returning her to her room over and over and over and over, she finally went to sleep on her own the first night.  After a week it only took me 45 minutes.  After three weeks only 20 minutes.  Now she gets up only a few times before she realizes there is nothing to gain and she should just go to sleep.   Nap time, however, has been a little bumpier.  Lilianna spends Friday nights at my mother's house and she must know how many days pass because every Friday she gives me trouble at nap time.  Being seven months pregnant- I'd started giving up after about an hour and 45 minutes.  This hasn't been working out so well because she then falls asleep in the car on the way to dinner and when she wakes up clings to me like white on rice.  No one else is allowed to touch her, and I have to hide when she gets distracted so she can be whisked away.
     Yesterday, I decided this would end.  She would take a nap and I didn't care how long it took.  When I tell you my kids try everything, believe it.  She found a book to read. I took it away.  She found a piece of a toy and clung to it like it was a buried treasure.  She took all of the clothes out of her dresser.  She pushed her bed off the wall and wedged herself in between the two.  She climbed on her changing table.  She hid in the corner in her closet.  She talked to herself and her teddy-bear for thirty minutes.  Every time I took away her distraction, returned her to her bed, and left without further discussion or contact.  After two and a half hours, she finally fell asleep.  Hopefully, next Friday will go more smoothly.

Time-out, Trial and Error

     As my first blog post, I thought I would introduce a  topic that is the most trying, in my opinion, for any parent-- discipline!  How young is too young for time out?  When do your kids start intentionally acting out and when are they just being curious?  I've found at the latest, eighteen months is when my children start actively manipulating (sounds harsh, but it's true).  They know they are not supposed to do things and instead of doing what is expected they come up with all kinds of tricks to get out of the very limited responsibility I impose on them.

Let's outline my children's responsibilities:
-Listen to Mommy and Daddy
-Eat your meals
-Take a nap
-Take a bath
-Go to bed.

     It's not a very long list, and most of it is just routine that you have to do because you won't survive without it!  The simplest things such as taking a nap can turn into a battle of an hour and half (this dwindles down after the first week and slowly takes less and less time).  When coming out of bed over and over doesn't work, my daughter will start calling my name.  When that doesn't work she starts calling "Daddy!  Richie!"  Really, anything she can think of that will work.  She throws her baby doll out of her bedroom door, and if it's not returned with her to bed starts screaming as if the world is ending, "My baby! My baby! My baby!"
     Time-out with my oldest, Richie, who is now three years old, was very difficult.  We had a  time-out step, he started banging his head against the wall.  Apparently, to him, this was hilarious.  Then we decided to use a small chair.  Richie decided he would practice mountain-climbing while in time-out.  Finally, after about a year of trial and error, we found a good spot on the carpet in the corner of the dining room.  Although he did go through a phase of standing on his head with his feet against the wall.  Luckily, he's got the deal down- when you break a rule you go in time out, and that just plain stinks.
     Our daughter, on the other hand, has been a train wreck.  My husband really has had no problem- because he was way more diligent with discipline than I was with her (the opposite being true with our son). He used the techniques that our "book" described very early, and I just gave her way more leeway and made tons of excuses for her behavior.  Now that I am doing time-out with her (at seven months pregnant) it has been very stressful.  For example, last night Lily would not come to the couch and get her jammies on for bed.    I asked her once casually.  She refused.  I asked her a second time firmly and warned her that she would go in time-out if she did not comply.  Not only did she refuse, she basically laughed in my face!  She ran herself over to the time-out corner as if she'd prefer it.  When I continued with our time-out steps and walked away, she got up over and over and over.  Then, she proceeded to run around the kitchen table, laughing, because she realizes how much slower I've gotten as the pregnancy has progressed.  Today was a better day.  Time-out didn't take nearly as long, and she only ran around the table once!  She is finally starting to realize that I mean business, and it makes life easier for all of us.
     To conclude this post, I'll leave you with our steps for successful time-out (1-minute per year of age):

1. Ask child casually to discontinue unwanted behavior.
2. Sternly repeat request with a warning.
3. Time-out: explain to child what they did wrong
4. Walk away, no further contact.
5. Times up; explain again.
6. Hugs and kisses

If the child leaves the time-out space at any time, simply return them without any conversation or other nonverbal communication.  BEWARE!  This could take a very long time the first few tries.  Just remain consistent, and follow the steps until the time-out is over.  Think of it in terms of delayed gratification:  put in a lot of hard work now, and you'll be thankful when your child isn't screaming in the grocery store and time-out really only takes a few minutes.  Good luck!