You'd think

You'd think I would know what I was doing by now with this parenting thing. But I'm here to tell you, it doesn't matter how many kids you have, you're still going to be clueless 90% of the time!!

I took Noah in for his 2 year check up on Tuesday. I love our Doctor because he doesn't make me feel like an idiot when I ask questions, he doesn't expect me to know everything, he is very good at asking the questions that get me thinking. This visit was no different. He taught me a lot about the things I need to work on with Noah and I want to write them down to really get them to stay in my head (or be somewhere I can look it up when I forget). But first I want to tell about the scare I had!
First thing the Dr. did was asked me to tell him about Noah. I started out describing my sweet, laid back, easy to please, easily entertained, very focused, well-behaved little 2-year old boy and Dr. Judd's face slowly made it's way to the "concerned" expression. WHAT??? What kind of world are we living in that a well-behaved, quiet little kid raises eyebrows??? It only took a few more questions before he realized that the behavior we were talking about was not anything to be concerned about, but HOW ANNOYING!!! I really like being able to have a good little boy and not being worried about it, so that frustrated me for a minute there :).... He said to keep him in the loop about his social and language development though, and to be working on keeping him interested in the world around him and he is "not worried". So it turned out okay, but GEES, don't scare me like that!!

Okay, so I asked about Noah's not eating problem and this is what he said:
He must be doing okay because he is growing and following his curve the way that he should.
Keep giving him the vitamins.
Make sure he at least sits at the table with the family during mealtime, and have a specific routine when it comes to mealtimes (which I think we have).
Offer a variety of foods- don't feed him the same thing every single day (oops. Mac and Cheese lunches are going to have to end, sorry brad and luke--- even if that is the only think Noah DOES eat)
Try to get him to take at least 2 bites of everything on his plate before getting down. Reward him.
Overall he's doing fine and it's not something I need to be too concerned about unless he starts losing weight.

He did say that Noah being calm and laid back is okay as long as he IS social in social situations. I think i need to provide him with more opportunities (as always, with all my kids, I feel like I am not social enough for them). I think Noah does fine. He's always been fun with Luke and they do more than parallel play too, so this one doesn't really worry me.

I told him how Noah was WAY interested in the potty for about a month there. He loved playing with the potty, flushing it, even sitting on it for a while there, but when I tried to start him with the potty training, he totally backed off. Even threw a bunch of tantrums about it. So this is the advice Dr. Judd had for that.... (most of this I remembered him telling me with LUke, but I did need the reminder)
Start changing his diapers in the bathroom.... associating bathroom stuff with the bathroom.
Offer to let him sit on the potty, but don't make it something he HAS to do. Just be really casual about it.
Once he does start sitting on it, reward him for even the slightest interest, and gradually work up to bigger and better things that he can be rewarded for.
He mentioned that rewarding him with "time with Mom and Dad" and things that will give himn our attention was the best thing to reward him with. I remember thinking that that would never work with Luke, but it totally did.... and actually really strengthened our relationship (not that he wasn't getting the time with us, but making a big deal about it changed things for some reason)

Then I was reading the little paper thing they give ya at each well-child visit, and it had some info about spanking. I thought of a good way to sum up what the thing was saying..... "Don't do it. It doesn't work. It makes you feel bad. AND it makes them think it's okay to hit." It's as simple as that. My own experience has taught me this, I do not need studies.

So anyway. That's my post. Sorry it's lame, just using my blog for helping myself :)

Oh, I wanted to say how cute it was that after Noah had had his 2 shots, cried and then SCREAMED out of anger, he calmed down and pointed at the door and said, "Niiiice". Meaning that he wanted the the nurse to be nice. Totally cracked me up.