Taming the tantrums!

Much of our focus lately has been trying to tame these terrible-two-tantrums that Easton has been having.  They stem from not being able to get his way (example: time for bed and he doesn't want to go or Daddy waking him up in the morning when he wants Mom) and we wanted to try to put an end to these before they turn into too much of a habit...especially before baby sister arrives!   We created a behavior chart for Easton that focuses on 3 things that have been troublesome for him:

1. Being a good listener
2. No Yelling/Crying when he doesn't get his way
3. Let Daddy get him ready in the morning (for some reason he always wants Mom in the morning which delays our morning process --- and when baby arrives I might be occupied feeding the baby or something so he needs to be more flexible about this). 

 He has always responded well to charts/stickers/rewards.  That is also how he potty-trained so great!  He has done so great with his new behavior chart.  If he starts to throw a tantrum we just remind him of his chart and he snaps right out of it.  But, even the number of tantrums have really gone down!   At the end of the day he gets to put a sticker next to each thing he did and then gets a jelly bean! 

Here's his chart from week 1:

He is also doing really well preparing for the baby.  Although, I know he's not exactly sure what is really going to happen, we have been reading big brother books and learning how to hold a baby etc... and he talks about it daily.  His teacher at school even asked me the other day if I was pregnant.  She said that he told her he's going to have a baby sister.  He likes to hug and kiss my belly and likes to pretend that he has a baby in his belly too. He talks about sharing toys with the baby, (although he's made it clear he'll share the baby's toys...he'll shake the rattle.  He's still hesitant on sharing HIS toys), singing songs to the baby and being gentle with the baby.  He asks lots of questions too which is great!  My favorite so far is, "Who are the baby's Mommy and Daddy?"  and "After you have the baby your belly will get smaller right, Mom?"  The only thing I'm really worried about is that for a few weeks after the c-section I'll be very limited as to what I can do with Easton and I don't know how he'll handle that. He likes to me hold him and pick him up and I'll have to be very careful around him with my incision.  I'm sure it'll be fine and will probably be harder on me than him.

We have been doing a lot to prepare for the baby.  Jake has started re-painting the baby room and Easton liked to help with that too.  Seems as though we have a lot of purchases to make for this baby even though we've already been through this before.  But I guess since we have been through it before we have a better idea as to what we will need the 2nd time around.

Easton has been doing great at school lately as well.  His old toddler teacher FINALLY moved up to be his preschool teacher and he had a wonderful week with her as his teacher and he was excited again to go to school.  He was like a different child when I picked him up last week.   I just love that he's having a good experience again.  He also started soccer at school last week and he LOVED it.  He's obsessed.  He loves to play it every day and he sticks with it for a "long" time too... it's pretty amazing.

In other news, found out we have a big baby girl on our hands.  At my ultrasound they mentioned a big belly so I asked my doctor about it at my last visit and she looked at the measurements and said all of the measurements were in the 95% but as of now she's still keeping my due date the same.  We're looking at May 14th for c-section.  We'll see what happens in the weeks to come.  The baby is healthy and that's all that matters!  We have narrowed down our girl names to 4 so we'll be sharing those sooner or later.... choosing girl names are pretty hard for us.  Stay tuned and we'll share those soon!  Also, I just recently decided I'm going to have to have 2 blogs now.  I was originally just going to have info. on both of the kiddos on the same blog but since I basically use this blog as a baby book I figured it wouldn't be fair to baby#2 - plus then they'd have to "fight" over who gets to keep the book when they're older...unless I order two (yes, I envision them loving these books so much that they will fight over them... haha...I can hope). 

Hockey Time with Dad

Little stinker climbed up on the counter when I moved the Jelly beans out of his reach.

Fixing his truck

Cheeeeeees-ing it up!  I took a picture of him and Jake when we were out for dinner.  He needed to take it again so he could give me a big cheeeeeeeeeeeese!