My son's OB-session with trains is allowing me to start this post. Normally I try to be engaging during the evening, but tonight we are doing some exercises in independent play. Seriously, though. He wakes up in the morning asking for choo-choo trains and has to get his fix in right before bed. Choo-choo trains dominate everything in between. Right now he is sitting in his car wearing his engineer hat, watching There Goes a Train and looking at his Thomas and Friends DVD case. One of the engines is named Emily, and I swear I could listen to him say "Emily" all day. I have a couple videos, so I'll post something on Facebook.

I feel like I'm struggling to formulate my parenting strategy here, and I'm a bit lost as to the kind of parent I want to be. I thought I had it all figured out before he was born, then I ended up having a shy, sensitive child. A lot of times, I'm not happy with the way I parent, and I want to get to a place where I feel confident that the way I go about it is the right way for our family.

When I was at Barnes & Noble, this book called "ScreamFree Parenting" by Hal Runkel caught my eye. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it, and I'm finding it really, really interesting and extremely helpful.

The main point of the book is that you can take control of situations by controlling your emotional reactions (which is not always the easiest thing to do). Basically, when you explode, the message that you're sending is that you're out of control of the situation and that it's your child's responsibility to make you feel better. Of course, in more words, but I really like what he has to say. It's really making a difference inside me so far, and I look forward to the rest of the book.

I wouldn't exactly say it is my parenting gospel just yet; the jury is out on how I feel about some of the points he makes, but as the book goes on it's possible they might make more sense later. For instance, it's all about raising a self-directed adult and teaching your child to make decisions for themselves and not solely because it's the decision you're forcing upon them. I agree that this can be a useful approach later, but I'm not sure how I am supposed to apply it to a 2-year-old. We DO need to teach him right and wrong and how to behave according to our values.

I really do recommend it, though. While geared a bit more towards parents of older children and might be more relevant in 2 or 3 years, it's helping me establish some principles for myself and really helping give me the motivation to calm down and deal with my child on a more human level. Of course, I've had many really easy days since I started reading it, so we'll see how I hold up when Liam starts testing me!

We have made the decision to find out the sex of the baby. I know a lot of people are thinking "I told you so! I knew you couldn't make it!"

It's totally not about not being able to take the suspense (although now that the decision has been made, I CAN'T WAIT TO KNOW!). It's just that, while it didn't matter to me at the beginning of the pregnancy what we have, it has slowly started to matter.

Kind of...2 days after we find out what we're having, it won't matter a bit. If it's a boy, you better believe I'll get in boy mode and love the heck out of him. Initially, though, I WILL be disappointed. I need some time to get over that and on to loving him, but I don't want that to happen at the same time I'm trying to bond with him.

I hate that I feel that way. I really wish I could truly not care and get to experience that moment, but, deny it all I want, but I really do want a girl. Luckily, I know what it's like to love a boy, and that won't be a problem at all.

We'll see what God has in store for us. I truly know that we'll have what we're supposed to have, and either way it'll be amazing. I guess we'll know January 25th and not so much on or around June 12th.