What have we been upto? Its been a while since I wrote a post so its time for an update.

Last week we went to Broken Hill. That is a 10 hour drive from our place. Quite significant with an 18 month old. We split up the trip - 4 hrs to Nyngan - stayed the night - then another 6 hours to BH.

I am one of those parents who doesn't let their child watch TV and would NEVER let their child watch a dvd player whilst in the car....oh how that has changed! A dvd player is basically an essential for a 10 hour trip (well...for a 4 hr trip or a 6 hr trip). I dug through our dvd's - and found two child friendly ones (a blinky bill one that I won in some competition and a Colin Buchannan one that I got from playgroup last year). I put them both on the ipad and thought I wouldn't need them but had them just incase. I am SO glad that I had them!!!

They were fantastic for after about 3 hours when OB was sick of looking out the window, we had finished the snacks, thrown the drink bottle on the floor, thrown all the toys away, pulled his shoes and socks off and was just full on red faced screaming. I attached the ipad to the back of the seat, put on blinky and bam...silence! He just stared at that screen for about half an hour! WOW. What a difference it made! It was great. I only ended up putting one of the 4 episodes of blinky on (im technologically challenged) so it went for 30 mins but that was enough time to calm him down into a relaxed state and he seemed to be fine when it finished.

We stayed with Joshs uncle, which was fabulous. OB slept each night 7-6.30am. Usually he sleeps till 7am but I think it was a tad colder in his room...not that i'm complaining - its still a great sleep! He did get a bit out of routine being away and being spoilt rotten.

We have been home for 3 days now and he is SLOWLY getting back to normal. We have had a few tantrums since getting back - mainly due to food. Because we were on holidays we just couldn't be bothered to be good parents and just let him eat whatever (and by that I mean muslei bars, babycinos, muffins and a few biscuits). And I think the main downfall was letting him eat WHENEVER. Usually he only eats breakfast, lunch and dinner so having snacks and eating whenever made him quite demanding for food and not so keen to eat his main meals (because he was full from snacks). So we are getting back to normal. It was really hard to stretch him out today when he was pointing to his char (obviously hungry) at 5.30 and we dont have dinner till 6. Luckily hubby distracted him and we were able to drag it out and he ate all his dinner (lots of veggies yay).

Well thats where we are at the moment. OB gets his 18 month needles tomorrow. Hopefully they won't affect him (none of the others did).

All in all - holidays are great. Having OB sleep all night and behave in the car (there were about 2 outbursts over the 20hrs of driving) made a big difference, I can't imagine how exhausting it would be if that wasn't the case.

Thoughts for a sunny spring day

A great day with Grandma.

Today we spent most of the day with Grandma (apart from a few hours at church). Its amazing seeing OB in a different environment. He can do more things than last time we were there!! He can sit up properly in the high chair, and ride the rocker!! So exciting!! We are so lucky to live so close to such great grandparents :)

To think about....

 'This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan, and scheme, and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, "How will this affect their souls?" ...the chief end of their lives is the salvation of their souls.' - J.C Ryle

This has got me thinking...that there is so much about OB's upbringing (that is yet to come) that I have not thought through! This scares me. I'm trying to think through discipline because that is what worries me the most. On one hand I want to be loving to OB, but on the other hand I want him to be well behaved. Above both of those I want him to become a christian. I don't want my actions to hinder that. 

Luckily I still have a bit of time to think through these issues and consult wise friends & family....

Proverbs 13:24 - He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. 

OB has been sick, which put a stop to our sleep training, however we started back up again yesterday. A good friend lent me "Save our sleep" by Tizzie Hall which is a HOTLY contested book. Last night we started the 10 month-up down-sleep training which consisted of putting OB back down every time he climbed up the rails of the cot. This was quite tedious (and I was only listening through the monitor). Last night it took about 45 minutes before sleep was achieved. Tonight only 20 minutes. Lets see what tomorrow brings. Also, OB is having one night feed (a dream feed at about 10.30pm) and thats it until morning (7am is his usual wake up time). So night-weaning has been successful (if you consider him to be night weaned with a dream feed).! Yay (hes nearly 10 months). 

Smacks

OB is at the age where we need to decide how to discipline him. Although it will start small, we need a framework for how we will deal with discipline issues in the future as they arise.

We want to display God and justice through our discipline and rules and obeying.

He knows (at 9 months) already when he does the wrong thing there are consequences (has been reaching out to touch the heater whilst looking at me and smiling). So I say "no" and give him a smack, hard enough to make him know it's unpleasant. I am amazed at how fast he is picking up on this.

Learning "no" means there are consequences to behaviours. It's hard to know what he can understand....but that's a message we want to pass on...

The aim for further discipline:

Controlled smacking. Talking through the choices OB makes that lead to the smack. Giving him the smack. Look him in the eyes, give him a cuddle and say im not mad anymore.

We want to make sure we teach him the seriousness of doing the wrong thing, consequences, mercy, the nature of God and resolving issues.

Somehow we want to pass on the model of God disciplining us (and his anger when bad things are done) but with an unending love and forgiveness.