Jared Stories

Tonight (I wrote this two weeks ago!) we went to an open house for some friends leaving Chicago and got home an hour after bed time. As the boys sat on Chris' lap and I got them ready for bed we were talking about things we like. Chris and I sided together on a sports team while Jared wanted to like another team. He was upset and proclaimed, "I want my family to like my team even more!" and then he got the saddest look on his face and started to cry and then said, "I'm just so tired! I want to go to bed." Such the sweetest and saddest thing I've seen in a long time. I love that boy.

While in Idaho over Christmas I was able to spend time with my sisters and their kids allowing my kids to play with their cousins. One day while at Valerie's house we were getting ready to leave and I told Jared we needed to run home real quick. My in-laws live a mile or less from Valerie's house. He started to cry. I told him he could stay if he wanted but he protested. As I was buckling him in his carseat he looked at me and said, "So you were just kidding that we were going to "run" home?" I started laughing and said, "Yes, we're going to drive?" The English language is very confusing for a 4 year-old.

I don't know where Jared learned this:
But one day I caught him drinking straight from the jug.

One day when taking Jared to school one little girl, Amaya, saw him and excitedly shouted, “Hi Jared!” and then embarrassed from her salutation hid behind her dad. It was evident to me that this little girl liked Jared, whether a crush or just liked him I don’t know but indeed liked him. A couple days later after school I asked Jared if he had any “girl” friends at school. He said no. I asked him about Amaya. He said, “No, she’s Anna’s friend.” (We do a lot with Anna and her family.) I then told him he could have lots of friends and people can have lots of friends too. Amaya could be both their friends. He then exclaimed, “Lets write her a letter!” They made mail boxes at their school and give each other “letters”. So we set out to write Amaya a letter. He started out by writing her name at the top and then didn’t want to write anymore but he told me what to write. It said, “Will you be my friend. Please send me a letter.” Signed Jared. He took it to school and I assumed he put it in her mailbox. Well he must have because a couple days later before he went into the classroom he came running to me with a letter. He opened it and had me read it to him. It said, “Yes I want to be your friend. “ Also included in the letter was a picture she colored and a wallet size school picture of herself. CUTE! I gave him a cute little smile and he ran off. I looked up and didn’t see Amaya but caught her dad’s eye and we just smiled at each other. Too cute. It reminded me of that country song when it says, “check yes or no”. I’m pretty sure Jared doesn’t have a “crush” or anything because he didn’t seem that into it or overly excited but it was fun for me to know a little girl likes my boy even if she just likes him as a friend.

Another story... One day I asked Jared to do something and he said, "Yes Pam!" What? I asked him if he knew a Pam and he said no. I asked him why he called me Pam? He said dad said to say Yes Sir and Yes Pam. Click! I got it! I then corrected him and said it was mam.

And... Jared has stopped sucking his thumb!!! It has been two months and only one or two quick relapses. Seriously this is amazing because it was soooo habitual for him and he stopped cold turkey with no yucky polish just a strong mind set to stop before his teeth moved too far out causing "buck teeth". I'm so proud of him and I ache for him too. Every now and then he'll say, "I want to suck my thumb so bad." To which I tell him that I know it's hard but I'm so proud of him. He earned an airplane transformer as his reward as well, but that's not why he did it.

Thumbsucking and Pacifiers

To try and prevent Jared from sucking his thumb we'd bought some stuff online that you paint on the fingernail and supposedly tastes nasty. Indeed it does, very bitter. Well it wasn't working for Jared, or so I thought. After I thought about it I wondered if Jared was able to maneuver his thumb in such a way as to not touch the nail when sucking, therefore avoiding the bitter taste. After sucking my own thumb various ways I concluded this was quite plausible. I then decided to give this polish stuff one more shot but this time I would paint the entire thumb and not just the nail. SUCCESS!!! We've done it for 2 weeks and he's doing great! There are times he's brought his thumb close to his mouth and then lowered it just as quickly. The only time he sucks it is if he's really tired and I've forgotten to put it on his thumb for a few days. I don't want to put on his thumb anymore because sometimes the taste gets on his food when it touches his thumb so I feel bad but the few times he's sucked his thumb I don't want to resort back to thumb sucking so we will continue painting his thumb until I'm certain he's done with this bad habit.

Below is a clip of Jared helping me finish up the bowl when making brownies:

At one time I thought Spencer might also become a thumb sucker but that phase didn't even last a week. Instead I've been insistent upon him taking a pacifier (I'm all about having a method to soothe my child when they're crying, just preferably not their thumb). He's never been a huge user of the pacifier and really all I've used it for for the past 2-4 months has been for sleeping. There were times I'd put him down without the pacifier and he'd do perfectly fine without it. I wondered why I continued to give it to him and realized it was more for my benefit for the "fear" he'd cry once I laid him down. So about a week or more ago we dropped the pacifier. It's still in his crib but I don't give it to him for sleeping and he doesn't put it in his mouth. So much easier then Jared but also Jared was a lot easier baby seeing how he self pacified himself. I can't have it all :)

Check out those blue eyes!