Book Repair

One might believe that a mother will have to deal with the same naughty behavior from child to child. Lots of times, Mayah will act out in some disobedient way, and Will or I will need to remind the other about moments or events when Judah had done or said the same thing. I feel like it is really easy to forget about the hard times with Judah, which makes Mayah's "in the moment" naughtiness seem so much worse. All kids act out. However, one child might do something the other would never have dreamed of doing. For example...

When Judah was a wee tot in his crib, he would wake up earlier than I was ready for him. To avoid getting out of bed, I would fix him a bottle (*gasp* "You gave him a bottle in his crib?!?!"...lay off, ladies. You've done it, too...you just lie about it when your doctor asks.) and give him five or six books to play with while I worked on getting out of bed or (heaven forbid) took a shower. Once I realized how well it worked, I would put the books in his bed at night before I went to bed. It worked out really well. If he woke up in the middle of the night or before 8:30, he learned that he wasn't going to be whisked out of bed. Instead, he would entertain himself and often go back to sleep. To all of you mamas who ask me how I teach my children to sleep past 8am, there it is. Neglect + learning to amuse oneself = babies who don't expect you to get them out of bed while it is still dark...okay...maybe not neglect. If you don't believe me that this tactic has it's merits, I had to drag Mayah out of bed at 8:45 this morning to make it to the 9:15 service at church.

Okay, moving right along. Knowing that this worked so wonderfully for Judah, I began to do the same thing when Mayah began to wake up too early. She, too, soon learned that waking up before Mama was ready wasn't going to fly. She, however, has a much more destructive side to her than Judah ever has. Instead of quietly amusing herself in her crib, Mayah took to tearing apart the books I would give her. Somehow, my strong little girl was able to rip the books at their seams. We have dozens of board books that are now just boards.

I finally decided to do something about all of the loose pages we have lying around our house. I went out to Staples and bought some loose leaf rings and began to punch holes near the spines of the books with my paper puncher. I then attached the pages together using the rings...so easy. I have, thus far, saved ten books from their impending fate in the dumpster.