Weight Loss Update

Well, we didn't do so good last week. We were both up two pounds. *Sigh* Recommitting is harder than I thought. Yesterday and today, I took Jon for a walk in the baby backpack. He is getting a bit large for the thing, and it's difficult to walk straight when he keeps throwing his weight from side to side and up and down. You might think I was slightly drunk because toward the end of the walk he's really getting bored and moves around a lot.

I've discovered that it's getting harder to find time to exercise during the afternoon because Adam's bus schedule is different and Jon takes a shorter nap. So I'm hoping the walks with 30+ pounds of weight might do some good. Of course, now the weather is supposed to be changing. Snow is coming. I'll figure something out

Jon-Jon and sleeping update

Jon was very cranky last night, but I put him in bed and warned him about the time out chair. Eric brought up one of the stools for emphasis. I left the room to check on the others kids and I came back and he was lying off the edge of the bed. I warned him again, and he pulled his legs up and went to sleep.

OK, so I thought it might have been because he was so tired. This afternoon, I put him down for a nap a little early. I warned him about the time out chair and left the room to read my scriptures. I sat on the stairs in the hallway to read just in case. In the time it took to read two chapters of the Book of Mormon, he was asleep, with no attempts to get out of bed.

HURRAY! This is so much better than having to sit there beside him, repeatedly putting him back in bed.

Jon-Jon and sleeping

We are working on getting Jon to bed at night. When we moved him out of the crib, we thought that it would 0nly take a couple of weeks for him to get the idea that he still needs to stay in bed even thought the bed doesn't have bars to keep him in anymore. Well, it's been 6 months and we are still having to sit on the floor beside the bed to keep him from destroying the house.

Jon is probably the most inquisitive of all of the children. He can also make a mess faster than any child I've ever seen. The other problem is that he responds different to discipline than the others. Nothing that worked with the others works with him. Restraining him on our laps doesn't work. Spanking REALLY doesn't work. (I spanked him once and he turned around and hit me back. Since we were also working on the "no hitting" idea, I didn't feel like I could tell him "no hitting" if I had just swatted his bottom.) So I have discovered that the Time Out Stool (it has to be one of the tall kitchen stools, the lower chairs don't work) is the way to go. I simply place him on the stool after the offensive behavior and then ignore him for a couple of minutes. Then I come back and reinforce the correct behavior. This has worked wonderfully well, as for some reason, he doesn't just climb off the stool, which he is capable of. So I decided to try that with his afternoon nap since I am tired of maintaining my post by the bedside. I brought up the tall computer stool and after about 3 or 4 times of getting out of bed, he finally figured out that I was serious and stayed in bed. I was able to leave the room and read my scriptures. I came back in and he had fallen asleep.

I will have to update you as to how this works tonight.

Women's Conference

Somehow, I keep forgetting to mention some of the most important items of my life. Our stake was invited to attend the Relief Society General Meeting at the Conference Center. It was amazing. It makes me wonder why I didn't pay more attention to this meeting in the past. President Uchtdorf's talk was wonderful. On the commute, I had a great time visiting with friends from my ward. We talked about people, our kids and mostly books. It was a spiritually and socially uplifting time.

General Conference

On Saturday, my friend Karen and I took Emma to the Conference Center in Salt Lake to attend her first live session of General Conference. It was a wonderful experience. She loved the children's choir and she had such warm feelings when the Prophet came into the room. There is something thrilling about standing in a room with thousands of people and realizing that God does have a living prophet who directs us today. I was also touched by the Spirit of God that afternoon and was so grateful to share the experience with my only daughter. After the intermediate hymn, the lady sitting in front of us turned around and commented that Emma sounded like an angel. She is my little angel.

Jon- Jon (not for the queasy of stomach)

Maybe you have read my entry a couple of days ago about Jon's exciting adventures. Well, today is the sequel. He comes into me saying, "Mommy, nose. Nose." I look at his nose and he has rammed a Cheerio up his left nostril. I try but cannot get the cereal out with my tweezers. So I dropped Adam off at the neighbor's house and drive to Orem to the doctor's office. I pull in, get Jon out of his car seat and he rubs his nose again. Then he sneezes a big cereal booger out. He's been running a slight clear runny nose the last few weeks, which I think is allergies. So the combination of moist insides with the porous texture of the cereal combined to save me a $100 trip to the doctor. The doctor's office was kind enough to cancel the appointment. The most expensive part was the fact that I had to drive 20 minutes each way to the doctor's office. The best comment was "Wow. He's giving you a run for your money lately."

Weight Loss Program

Just for those interested, Eric and I have re-committed to the weight goals we set at the beginning of the year. The summer was rough, but at weigh in this morning, I have lost 29 lbs and Eric is down 15.