Creative Parenting

 

 I thought we'd take a break from all the Christmas talk today. On our most recent trip, something came up that my hubby thought might be interesting to share. He thought I should share with you some creative parenting that we've come up with due to how much we travel.


   So, little back story on this first one... Our daughter hates her car seat ( so does our son for that matter). But our daughter has figured out to push the chest strap down and get her arms out so that she can have some freedom. She is not allowed to do that, and as soon as we notice, it is very quickly fixed. She used to tell on herself and as soon as she was out she would go "Hi, dad!!" in a very mischievous tone. Now she has gotten smarter and knows that if she's quiet we may not turn around and notice as quickly. Well, in one of the times that we did notice, my husband had turned and was correcting her with me while he was driving. While turned, the van veered a little and we drove over those ridges on the side of the road. It was in that moment, the Road Monster was born.

   When she heard that sound of us driving over the ridges, she jumped and went "Dad, what that noise??".  My husband replied "That's the Road Monster. He's trying to come get you because you're out of your buckle."  She very quickly put her arms back in and started yelling "Go away, Road Monster!!".  So now she thinks there's a monster that eats bad kids in the car, and every time she tries to take her arms out or won't stop whining, the Road Monster makes an appearance. It has worked well so far. We think it's pretty genius, but I won't ask your opinion. 😉

  Disclaimer on this next one: If you do Santa, that's between you and your kids and I don't judge you, so don't judge us for this. Although every time I see a kid who believes in Santa I think "Cute kid. Baaaad judge of character". I've realized that in the life of a two year old that watches any kind of cartoons this time of year or that even leaves the house during Christmas time, there is no possible way to hide Santa from the at all. And although we have told our daughter, she doesn't quite understand about the whole real truth about Christmas. If you have a two year old that does, your kid is a genius. Just saying. So, last night actually, we came up with a temporary solution I guess you could say. 😏

   We were driving through a park that had Christmas lights and as you would expect, half of the displays were of Santa Clause. They had a very nice nativity, but then about 15 Santa displays. So when our daughter yelled "There's Santa!", my hubby came back with "Ya, there's that bad man". We then proceeded to tell her that he was a bad man who always tried to steal all the presents that daddy and mommy would buy. Shortly after, we had her yelling "Don't touch my presents, bad man!!" 😂😂😂  Again, how you deal with Santa is up to you. This is what we're doing for now. We're like Planet Fitness here. It's a judgment free zone. So don't judge.


    I'm really curious to see how my son reacts to things. He's not quite at the understanding age that our daughter is. And I'm even more curious to see how having baby #3 is going to change things. How much more creative your parenting must get with each child. This third pregnancy has changed me much more than the last two so far. Hormones and pains and all. I'm at the stage where I go through my closet I start throwing clothes on the bed saying "Stupid. Ugly. Out of date. This is ridiculous. If I can't find something nice to wear, I'm not going!".  But in the end it's all worth it for that beautiful baby #3.

Just wanted to share this attempt at a Christmas picture. I don't know what I'd do without these boogers. 

   Don't forget about today's quote! There are actually two, but they are from the same movie. Which I happen to be watching as I write this post. If you guess White Christmas for the last quote you would be correct! But no one seemed to guess, so 2,000 meaningless points to mom since she stumped you all! They can't all be super obvious quotes so don't give up too easily, guys!