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Merry Christmas! I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season. This is actually a two part blog. 1. The worlds best chew toy! and 2. A reply to some folks who have been upset about my blog content ... So, the worlds best chew toy? Kong! Yes, not just for your dogs!!! I can't believe it took me this long (and with my mom's suggestion, too) to give my kiddo a Kong! My first one never chewed ... really, never. We didn't baby proof anything! My second little one, he chews everything (including drywall so we have to watch our windowsills!) As a zoo keeper, pretty much one of the best toys for the zoo animals is Kong chew toys - from vultures to primates, they all love them. They are bouncy, fun to put treats in and can take a ton of chewing. I have purchased a huge variety of chew toys made for babies, but not a one has held up to the kind of chewing my little one wants to do! Not until we got him a Kong, that is! I just switched phones, so I don't have a great picture of my kiddo chewing, but please enjoy this blog (click on photo) from the Oakland zoo. If Kong is good enough to stand up to their bears, I bet it will work for your cubs at home too! 
Chew on this (Part 2) I have been told there are people who are extremely upset that I have not written more about being a military wife in my blog. Well, this is not a blog about being a military wife. While I have mentioned it and my husband's service in my bio and my very first post, it apparently was not enough to satisfy some sort of quota military wives are supposed to meet in blogs about parallels between animal training and raising kids. I am very thankful for my husband, his service and his commitment to doing what he thinks is right. There are many who sacrifice (whether a combat veteran like him, or having served in times of peace) and I am appreciative and thankful for all of them. There are also many military families who sacrifice through multiple deployments. I have only been through one. I suspect the wives with multiple deployments under their belt might be best qualified to write a blog about how to deal with deployment issues. There are many events which define us as a person. While my husband has been military for many years and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, he has also done many other things which are important and defining of his character. Get to know him and you will find that out! Still, if anyone in our family should write about military it should be my husband, not me, and he has a great writing style too, so feel free ask him. One of the things that defines me as a person is being a military wife ... but that is not all. I have had many years being an animal trainer, so for those who are interested, I parallel aspects of my animal training experience to raising kiddos. If you are interested in reading it and discussing it, I love it! I love hearing responses from those who agree and also hearing counterpoints from those who disagree. If you are not interested in this blog, well this is a free country, you are welcome to read it and say whatever you want ... but isn't your time better spent elsewhere? If you don't like it, why get yourself all worked up? Just don't read it.
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Oh the dreaded giving up pacifiers and bottles. There is that magical age that our mothers, doctors, friends, and strangers on the street tell us we are supposed to get our kids off of bottles and pacifiers. I hear stories of poor kids screaming through the day and night and poor parents hearts wrenching for doing what they think they have to do to make their child give up a bottle or pacifier. Well I am not doing that to mine! Look, every bit of research I have found shows that the only problem with the bottle is if you are giving it to them with juice or milk - you could rot those baby teeth (which are going to fall out anyway). My recently 3 year old drinks only water in his bottle ... that is all. Problem solved. I remember in 3rd grade a couple of the "popular" kids brought bottles to school because they had a younger brother or sister. It actually started a bizarre 3rd grade bottle craze in my school, I was begging my mom to get one for me. Ok so I doubt that is normal and most likely my kid is not going to want other kids to see him drink from a bottle when he is 8 or 9, but it isn't like I would rat him out to other kids. And when he gets old enough to succumb to peer pressure or get made fun of for having a bottle we could switch him to this kind:  Wow! Can you believe there is a market for these weird bottles which look like replacement bottles for grown ups? So all you people sucking the nipples of these drink bottles to get your hydration … maybe your mom should have let you have a pacifier or bottle a little longer too! Ok but back to being less snarky, why do we really care? Is it because people will judge us if we let our kid drink out of a bottle or suck on a pacifier longer than the “They” people out there tell us? I have so many more things on the top of my list, like teaching empathy and kindness to my kiddos … who cares about a bottle? Have any of you all let your little one keep a bottle or paci longer than “They” say you should? |
