Thursday, November 3, 2011

Peaceful Parenting: The Calm Down Jar

You guys, I have so much to tell you today. Pardon me if I'm a little all over the place. Let's start with Peaceful Parenting this lovely chilly Thursday. This week I attempted a pin that I saw on Pinterest. It seemed ridiculously wise. It's a Calm Down Jar. It's designed to be used to help your kid chill when they're all spazzy. You put in a tube of glitter glue, a cup of hot water, and a little extra glitter. The glue will make it fall slowly and your kid should watch it until the glitter settles back on the bottom.



The thing is that my kids hate it. They totally know it's just a prettier time out. Will whines the whole time. I try and tell him that it's pretty and just relax and watch it, but he protests so much that it is far from peaceful. So this week it's a Peaceful Parenting FAIL for me. Got any other ideas for spaz time?

Moving on to more updates. I told you this week that we decided to go for a 4 or  5 year old girl. Well, I know you totally don't care about every detail of our adoption, but I'm going to keep you up to speed because some people are following along to learn about the process. So here's the scoop. We've made one last final change. It's going to be a 2 or 3 year old girl for us after all. Studies show that the best case scenario for adopted families are to go with a child at least a year younger than your youngest. And for us that's 2 or 3, so that's our final decision. That also means that our wait time is going to be quite long. So you're stuck with me for a while.

Ok, now a goofy update. Remember last weeks' little sewing project? Check it out. I finished one! I love her. My friend Destiny makes fun of me every day for my freakish new doll obsession, but can you blame me?! She's so cute. And tiny. I know you can't tell how tiny she is, but she's only six inches tall. I decorated a mailer box from paper source (with watercolor, collage paper, and glitter) and made it her little "house". My daughter loves her to death, but this little sweetie is Africa bound. I'm putting her in a blessing bag, so some little girl will get a fun surprise. There will definitely be lots more of these happening before Christmas.



And one more update. The Martinez family now has over $1000 including the Dollar Mob donations!!! I have been waiting for us to bust 1K for a few months now and YOU did it. That's a big chunk, you guys! Thank you to everyone who ever told anyone about this blog or this family or one of our other families. Thank you for everyone who's ever donated and everyone who's ever added something to the shop. Just thank you! You guys are my favorite people.

7 comments:

  1. How exciting for the Martinez family to break the 1,000 mark!

    What an adjustment to go from 2 older girls to 1 much younger. God does like surprises. I'm not a big fan of surprises, but I do live Him!

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  2. No kidding, girl! It has taken me a good 48 hours to accept this. But that's how it goes, right? It's going to be great though. I'm having fun picking out a shared room for her and Abby.

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  3. What do we have to do to get those dolls in the Give 1 store? I don't want to detract from you sending those to Africa, because that is precious. But someday, I'd love to get a doll like that for my future girl. It's super cute.

    And way to go for the Martinez family! The Give 1 movement is taking off!

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  4. ha! i was going to make you one anyway, goofball!

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  5. Beth, your little pixie turned out beautifully! Some lucky little girl will be thrilled and will have hours of fun with her! Love the sweet beads on the hem!
    ~Shelly
    PS All the best with the adoption process:)

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  6. ha, ha! way to keep it real + own the failure... ;D exciting adoption news! I love hearing it all.

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  7. lol! How AWESOME would it be if something like a sparkle jar actually calmed are kiddos down!!! I love that you gave that a valiant effort. So here are my thoughts, I get super crabby when I'm a. Hungry, b. Tired, or c. Hormonal. I'm not sure our kids are much different. Once we have ruled out a. and b. in our home, we figure it's just us they need and want. Our pure undivided attention. We get down to there level, literally. Emma, our youngest is 20 months old. We get on the floor so that we are face to face with her and using our calmest voice we ask her what she needs and wants. Most of the time, the tantrum stops immediately, and she is on her merry way. It's like she just wanted to say, "Hey mom and dad, I'm just checking to see if you still know I'm here." As for our 2nd grader, Abigail, we use the red light discipline approach with her. You know the one? The discipline the Kindergarten teacher used with your kids. Believe it or not, it still works. That girl gets her clip moved to yellow, and there's no way she's going to risk moving to red. She does, she knows she loses her much coveted privileges and she doesn't want that. With her, the yellow light diffuses the tantrums.

    As for the dolls, I'm with Lindsay! Get those cuties in the shop!

    Erica

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