These are days you’ll remember

Today was a good day. Its always good when your child is happy, laughing, and bouncy. Gavin was a lot of both today. Him and Charlotte started with a nice little giggle fest as when I bounced and spun them both when I picked him up from day care. They both have delightful giggles. I know Charlotte got it from her mom, I have to assume Gavin learned it from Charlotte. I know I sure as hell don't giggle like that.

Gavin had a sing-a-long with the music playing on the iPod in the car. Now he's only 14 months, so obviously it wasn't a very accurate sing-a-long, but the effort was there. Along with some driving directions ("GO!"). The boy likes speed.

Gavin's ball throwing has improved considerably, and we had a great time passing the ball back and forth. He's beginning to enjoy these interactive games, which is a big step from the solo playing. Another game he started doing today involved his new walking backwards skill.

Pam and I have been working on getting Gavin to keep his sippy cup in the kitchen. Sometimes he'll make a break for it, not because he wants the cup in the other room, but because its fun to have us go after him. Well today he started just inching backwards towards the family room while drinking from the sippy cup. When he got to the carpet, he looked at me, saw me give him a look, and he laughed and ran back into the kitchen to begin again.

This is a good game, it uses positive reinforcement to remember to keep the cup in the kitchen, which is tons more effective then telling him "NO" over and over and over. I'm not afriad of laying down the law when needed, but I'll always try to find a way to use positive reinforcement. This sometimes leads to excessive cheering and sillyness, but its pretty effective, and my boy is pretty darn happy AND well behaved.

I said well behaved, not perfect. He still thinks its fun to pound on the TV. We're working on that, though its difficult since I'm positive if we were out of the house, he wouldn't touch the TV. He's doing it for the reaction and probably a sign that we're not paying him as much attention as he'd like. If I looked at each time it happened, it would probably be when Pam and I are in discussion, or in those very rare instances the TV is on while Gavin is awake. I'll admit that hockey playoffs are an exception to that, but hey, that's special.

I'm extremely glad that when the TV is on, he usually ignores it if it isn't Baby Einstein. Don't know why he pays attention solely to that, but I'm not going to question it.

All in all a lot of laughing by baby and parents today. I've spent a good portion of my life thinking about what it means to be a good parent, and I'm happy to see that its working pretty well. Don't know if my friends agree with my parenting styles or not, but hey, they don't read this anyway.

Frankly my friends have a lot of differing styles, some I like, some I'm not quite comfortable with. I'll be honest and say the stuff I'm not comfortable with seems to be working just fine, and its a matter of personal style for me. We seem to be raising some good kids so far, and that's all that matters. I usually keep my opinions to myself unless it comes up in converstation, and then I try to coach them in the most non-agressive terms. Though I'm sure I've offended someone at some point in time. People take this parenting thing personally, as they should. No rocks through my window.....oh...wait...but that's another story.

My style is very soft, with a definate line. I believe in allowing the kids a great deal of freedom to explore their environment. This involves letting them occasionly push my kitchen chairs around, and his high chair as well. He's learning about moving stuff, navigating, and how things react. As you can't push a chair through a table. I keep a calm, pleasant, happy voice. A lot of positive reinforcement when he does things I approve of. But when he crosses a certain line (pounding on the TV, playing with a power cord) the reaction is firm, immediate, and sometimes a little harsh. I always try to keep it as consistent as possible, which sounds easy, but when you're tired its temping to let things slide. As soon as he stops, we go back to happy nice daddy. Gavin's a smart kid, he figures it out pretty quick for the most part.

My only worry is that day care won't be as hard on him when he misbehaves. So far he's been a good kid there (at least from what they tell me), so I can't really judge that yet. I told them to drop the heavy end of the hammer if he starts pushing and shoving, hopefully they'll listen.

Anyway, that's enough for this post. Maybe one day I'll try a short post and see what that's like :). I'm getting better at catching my writing mistakes and correcting them as I'm going along. I'm also getting back to the smoother style that I used in college. Maybe I'll actually tell some people about this thing someday.

Then I can criticize Merl for his parenting. How could you lie to your daughter like that? It was MY puck.