Fall Harvest (Halloween)

At daycare they didn't celebrate Halloween this year, they talked about Fall Harvest. And the kids got to dress up and go to the college campus and "harvest" candy from other people who were dressed up. Hmmmm. It's all symantics.

A co-worker told me that the kids would be breaking a pinata at 10 am, so I went to the building and saw DS1. He had not been interested in any costumes when we went shopping, so last night I turned his orange long sleeve shirt inside out and painted a jack-o-lantern face on it. So we was "a pumpkin face" today. He enjoyed it! The kids got lots of candy and DS1 told me "we're trick or treating". The only part that I didn't care for was the pinata. The bigger (4-5 yr olds) had fun taking turns hitting it with a plastic bat, but it took an adult male several whacks to get it to break. Then the mad rush to pick up candy from the floor. DS1 was standing back and seemed a bit overwhelmed. I thought, "Great, teach the kids to be greedy and push their friends." DS1 did pick up a few pieces of candy, and there were adults up above (it was in an atrium area) dropping more candy away from the center so every kid probably did get some candy there. Not that there was any shortage of candy for the kids today, DS1's bag was not quite as big as a grocery shopping bag, and it had a good 2-4" of candy filling it. Quite a haul, actually.

You're Welcome

Yesterday DS1 said "You're Welcome" after I thanked him for something. We have never "taught" him "You're Welcome", just modeled it a lot. We have prompted for "please" and "thank you" on occasion, but don't much anymore. DH says thank you a lot but not please as much. So does DS1... hmmm. :-) DS1 even prompted me for "please" once last week when I asked for something without saying it. It got me thinking a lot about how it feels to be the one being prompted, so I try not to do that anymore.

DiaperFreeBaby -- I'm interested in this because I would like DS1 to start using the toiliet in as natural way as possible.

Alfie Kohn - Parenting - Selected Publications - Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" -- At first I thought I would not agree with (or like) this article. Even part way through it I was questioning (which is good, actually). But it made me realize that I am pretty good at this. My son says "I did it!" a lot, and he even said "You did it!" to his little brother when he sucessfully put the ball in the laundry basket.

I also noticed that is probably related a couple of days ago when we visited my dad. My sister and her two daughters were there. The older girl (Dear Niece) is almost 4. (DS1 is 2 1/2.) They got out some puzzles to do. DN asked Grandpa to help. Then DS1 asked for help, too. He doesn't usually ask for help with puzzles, and these were ones that he could easily have done without help. It seemed like when he saw DN "needing help" that he then "needed help" too. I don't know if DN really did need help with the puzzles or that she was wanting interaction, but seeing that behavior copied caught my attention.