Help!

January 31, 2012 By maryalice

Okay, I have hit a parenting wall and I am hoping that some of you will be able to advise me.

My older four children take a swimming lesson every Tuesday afternoon.  In the past, my younger ones have sort of hung out poolside, been a little bit of a discipline problem while waiting or played with other kids who were waiting.  Right now, though, I would also like them to learn to swim.

I didn’t want to come to the pool on a different day for a preschool lesson, so I arranged a private lesson to coincide with the big kid lesson.  For 6 weeks, my boys happily participated in their private lesson.  The cost was substantial, but I figured that they were getting better instruction in a private and I was getting a convenient time slot, so it was worth it.

Gradually, over the last three weeks, my 4 year old has been refusing to participate.  The first week, he wanted to get out early, when about 10 minutes of the lesson remained.  The next week, he refused to get in, and again missed 10 minutes of the 30 minute lesson.  This time, as soon as the instructor came into sight, he buried his head in my lap.  I told him it was time for swimming and he said he “needed Mommy.”  I offered to sit at the side of the pool, but he wouldn’t come out of my lap.  Then, I took him into a private area and told him in strong tone that this was unacceptable and he needed to do his swimming lesson.  At that point, he burst into tears.  I sat him down on a bench and he proceeded to cry for the entire half hour, sometimes kicking the bleachers and sometimes screaming that he wanted to sit in my lap.  The people around me were horrified.  Meanwhile, the 3 year old happily went about his swimming lesson.

At the very end the tantrum stopped and he told his teacher that he would swim next week, but then again in the locker room a few minutes later he told me that he doesn’t want to do swimming lessons anymore.

What do I do?  I can’t make him get in the pool, and I hate the idea of continuing to pay for lessons while he is not participating.  However, if he gets to sit in my lap while the other 5 kids are all in lessons, I feel like he will have won the power struggle?  Plus, I really need him to learn to swim, we have a pool in our backyard.  But maybe I should just give it time? Do I try again next week, or should I just withdraw from the session and get my money back?  Was it just a bad day, combined with the fact that I did let him get out early that time a few weeks ago, and now he is trying to see how far he can take it?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Christmas Gift Round-Up: What were your favorites this year?

January 31, 2012 By Katrina

My son received a really cool ant farm for Christmas this year – thanks Aunt M and Uncle D :) – and our entire family has been enjoying watching the progression that the ants have made through the gel over the past few weeks. When we first received this gift in the mail, I have to say that I was slightly terrified by the thought of 30 harvester ants somehow escaping and crawling all over my son’s room. Thankfully, I soon realized that there is no way for the ants to escape, and a gift that I would probably not have bought my son has quickly become a family favorite.

Other favorites included a children’s camera that connects via USB cable to the computer (beware the games, though!), the board game Parcheesi, a cash register, and of course, Legos.

Which gifts were your family’s winners this year? Any flops?

God bless you all this morning!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Prayer and Action

January 30, 2012 By Katrina

Our pastor gave a powerful homily at Mass this morning, and continued his thoughts in the weekly bulletin – I thought that I would share some excerpts here, in the hopes that we might all prayerfully consider how we can respond courageously to the situation described below. Blessings to you this Monday morning!

Dear friends in Christ:

A week ago last Friday, January 20, two days before the 39th anniversary of the tragic Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade which has resulted in more than 50 million preventable deaths in the U.S., the Obama Administration took another step to diminish religious freedom and force Americans to violate their consciences. Against a huge outcry, the Obama Administration’s Health and Human Services Department has upheld its earlier decision to force all employers to pay for and provide sterilization, abortifacents (abortion producing drugs) and contraceptives in their health insurance coverage with only the most narrow exemption clause. This decision is being denounced and condemned by our own archbishop, the entirety of the Catholic bishops in the United States, religious leaders of other faiths, a growing number of democratic supporters of the president and many others who cherish the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence (you may read the bishops’ statement at www.usccb.org).

…In speaking to a group of American bishops on January 18, two days before the Obama Administration’s latest assault on the freedom and rights of Americans, Pope Benedict XVI said:

“At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principals deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.”

…Some may ask, “what is the big deal?” The big deal is this – when foundational principles are assaulted and eroded, sooner or later the house comes tumbling down. Our country has survived, grown and flourished because these principles have been honored, defended and respected. America’s greatness has been in the liberty and the rights that her citizens have enjoyed…

Filed Under: Politics and Current Events

Link Round Up

January 27, 2012 By maryalice

One of the amazing things about this interweb is the way that our use of it seems to be constantly evolving.  I thought I had things figured out pretty well there, for a while, with a blog and my email I was feeling super hip, but these days information is coming at me from so many sources it is hard to keep track of it all — and guess what — I love it!  I know that it is distracting and I have to force myself to put down my phone and look up at my children, but I am really invigorated by the new ideas coming my way.  I subscribe to a few blogs on google reader, but I also see links to blogs and articles on my facebook and twitter accounts.

One downside is that I (we) haven’t found an easy way to share what we are reading with our BC readers.  We are working on it, but in the meantime I click through to something on twitter and think, wow, everyone should read this, but the link never makes it from my mobile-twitter app to my desktop to wordpress.  Oh well, someday you will all be able to read my thoughts electronically, and I won’t have to filter anything.

Speaking of filters, though, more might be good from time to time, and we have been chatting a bit about privacy on our Builders email list (see, even we still have some private conversations).  To that end, you might click over to (one of my favorite blogs) Clover Lane and read what she has to say about Teens and Facebook.  I am always thankful for the mothers who go before us and figure some of this stuff out, since my oldest is only 10.

Next, I have been on the defensive a bit lately, and then I saw this post on the SixSeeds newsletter.  The title “Why I don’t homeschool, and why you shouldn’t either,” got my heart racing and I was ready for a huge fight.  Boy, was I surprised by what this articulate writer had to say.  I will be following her in the future.

Yesterday, someone gave us a brand new board game, Life, which was an extra at their house.  My kids are always dying to play games with me, but I rarely have the patience.  I have been playing a lot of Words with Friends on my phone with my oldest, which is a super fun and stimulating way to pass the time, and we had a rockin game of scrabble last weekend, so I want more game time in the future.  Just this morning, I got this post on my facebook feed, which encouraged me to make it happen.

Lastly, on my kindle reader I am slowly working through The Faith Explained by Fr. Leo Trese.  What an amazing book, I could not recommend it more strongly.  I am thinking about using it for confirmation prep when we get to that point.  This book seems to answer all of the questions that I always had but was too afraid, or inarticulate, to ask about my faith.  I wish that every Catholic would read it before they go to college.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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