Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Baking cookies

When I was little, mom sometimes made gingerbread for breakfast. i love gingerbread. So I got a box of gingerbread mix to pass on the delight. That's when I noticed that the side of the box had a recipe for cookies using the same mix. My kids eat cookies far better than cake, so bingo! Ginger cookie breakfast (with banana and milk- I'm not a complete oaf as a parent) was born!

This morning, Joey made the cookies. Well, he helped. He poured the warm water and teh extra flour into the bowl, and helped mix it up, then helped roll the dough into balls (not very successful at that yet), then squished them (all by himself!) to make snaps.

The trouble arose when we had to bake them. All hell broke loose. No-no-no, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, cookies now cookies cookies cookies....

Fifteen minutes and my sanity later, the cookies were being eaten. So again, i explained, "See? We have to bake the cookies. THey have to cook. Do you like them cooked? "
"Yes."
"Then we have to cook them. And it takes ten minutes to cook them, and then we have cookies. Okay? "
"Okay!"

At least teh cookies were good.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

A Smack on the Chin

Joey has a new behavior stratgey for trying to get what he wants when Mom says he can't have it- he smack himself on the chin with the heel of his hand. Hard.

Up to this point, we have escaped with minimal self-injury, and I would still say we are escaping with minimal self-injury. Right now we have finger-biting when he gets frustrated, and now the attempt to smash his own jawbone when he's having a mini-tantrum. It could be worse. However, trying to stop these behaviors is not fun. Since he is doing these for frustration and anger, trying to stop the behavior makes it all worse. Not good.

Fortunately, school starts up next week, so we can get some help from his teachers. I'm sure his teacher is not going to stand for "no-no-no", then a smack on his chin, followed by a hard bite of his fingers. No, they don't go for that at school, and he knows it.

A Chat with a Friend

We were supposed to go to the pool on Friday, but everybody here was sick. :P Joey was really looking forward to it, too- we were going to see his friend, Charity. She's a darling little thing who is in Joey's classes at school- or has been. This year she will be in HeadStart. She was so upset, her mom let her call- and she and Joey talked on the phone together! It was amazing! He was so happy to have a call, and to have it be Charity! He did some echoing, but they seemed to be actually having a conversation. Incredible!