July 21st, 2012 by Busy Mommy

July 21st, 2012 by Busy Mommy

Usually just Ben or I puts Nolan to bed, but tonight Nolan wanted me in there and it was a cozy feeling to crawl into the Bed with my men and listen as Ben read Nolan “Winnie the Pooh.”

This brings me to another story.  At the library the other day they had a summer reading program going on that kids of all ages could sign up for.  For kids in the 2-3 year range like Nolan the goal was to read 10 books with your child- for the entire summer.  Let me re-phrase that.  The goal was to complete 10 books by the end of the summer.  Huh?  This family reads 4-5 books with Nolan every single day!  Just going-to-bed-time usually has 2-3, sometimes 4 stories read before the lights go out.  Add in another story or two sometime during the rest of the day, we’ve reached the summer reading goal in 2 days.  Then we start over the next day.  They don’t let you sign up more than once.  It just kind of shocked me because it made me think do parents really not read to their children much anymore?  For the library to give a goal to read only 10 books, it just seems like there must be some serious lack in that department.

Which brings me to another story.  I remember kind of freaking out (first time mommy syndrome) when Nolan wouldn’t sit and let me read Thomas the Train when he was like 6 months old.  I thought to myself, “what’s wrong with him!??  He doesn’t like reading!! What am I going to do now? This is so horrible!  Why won’t he sit still?”  Oh yeah…he was six months old.  It’s really quite funny to think of it now.  Of course Nolan has loved reading for quite some time now and he’d sit through 10 books if we had the time and vocal strength to read that many in a row.

July 21st, 2012 by Busy Mommy

Nolan is very affectionate and has no concept whatsoever of what we call that “personal bubble”.  I love hugging and kissing Nolan, so I do it all the time…..so I guess it’s only natural that Nolan would sidle up to other people and get cozy.

Nolan and Mia were being so good at the meeting the other night, looking at his little Bible and Bible story book together.  We won’t mention the part about Nolan trying to kiss her multiple times.  Oh yeah, I have to mention it because it goes with the point of this story.

When I told a friend about Nolan’s advances she laughed and said “he’s a lover” and mentioned a few other very affectionate outgoing children in her congregation who had these same qualities.  This came up because I’ve been trying to teach Nolan how to give “space” to others, and what it means to be a good friend- trying to go along with what the other person wants and respecting his/her wishes.

I told him that mommy loves to gets tons of kisses and hugs from him, but not everyone is like me and that some people like to have more space.  So we had a practice session of sorts on our way to see another little boy.

Mommy: “So Nolan, if you want to show (we’ll call him Bob) Bob something, should you grab him and pull him over there, or should you say, ‘bob, do you want to come see this?'”

Nolan in an exclamatory way: “I should say ‘bob do you want to come see this!”

Mommy: “yeah!  Now what should you do if he says no?  Should you grab him anyway and make him come, or should you say, ‘that’s okay bob.'”

Nolan: “I should say ‘that’s okay bob!'”

Mommy: “good job!”

I think it actually helped because he really did quite well with not being overly forceful with his own ideas on our little playdate that day.