Parenting 101

I have a couple friends who occasionally ask me for parenting advice? Why, you ask? Well, clearly I am a superb parenting specimen. And so I present my first ever lesson on parenting 101:

1. When you are about to lose your mind with your kids for one reason or another and you feel like running full speed at the nearest wall and knocking yourself unconscious just for the peace and quiet, I recommend a different approach. Why not jump up and down, screaming at the top of your lungs like a 2-year old throwing a temper tantrum. It makes you feel loads better, not at all like an out-of-control idiot. Especially, when you realize after the fact that your kid's friend was standing at the front door to witness such an outburst!

Big Girl Bed

Avery got a big girl bed yesterday (which at this point consists of a twin mattress on the floor). She couldn't be more excited!

My plan was to build anticipation of the new bed, by not letting her sleep in it until this weekend. That way she'd really be excited to sleep in it and we could all sleep in the next day since I anticipated a rough transition.

Daddy couldn't help himself. Avery was so excited, that he wanted to put her in it last night. And, so we're off!

She laid down well enough at 8pm, but it didn't take long before she figured out that she had a lot more freedom. As expected, she got out of the bed several thousand times and we put her back each time. Sometimes she cried, but mostly she just thought it was a fun game!

She finally fell asleep around 10p. At 11p, she fell out of bed (this is why it's on the floor!). From 11-12a, Matt and I took took turns putting her back in her bed another couple thousand times. From 12a on I don't think Matt or I got out of bed. She would come into our room and we would send her back to bed. We assumed that she was actually going back to bed. At some point around 1a she stopped coming in. Ahhh, sweet sleep.

Needless to say, I turned off my 5a alarm and went back to sleep. Matt woke me up at 5:45a. I assume she was in her bed, Matt checked on her and pulled her door shut. I haven't had the courage to open it.

I can only imagine what a good day it's going to be! Mostly, I'm looking forward to nap time! Can you smell the sarcasm?

Essays

One of our favorite new punishments for Elliot (thank you Dr. Ray) is to have Elliot write essays. It's a great punishment because it provides time for reflection on the part of the child. It's also great for parents because we get proof that our kids really know how to behave even though sometimes they choose otherwise. Most importantly, it makes for good reading! I'll share some favorites.

On Our Family's Roles and Responsibilities (150 Words)
Mom's role is to go to the grocery, make us all breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is very important that mom does this because or else we would not have any food to eat for life.

Dad's role is to go to work to get most of the money we need to pay bills, pay for groceries, and for anything else we might need in life.

Mom and Dad are both in charge of the house. They tell Avery and I what to do. They are adults and we're just kids. They are our parents, we follow their rules and they tell us what to do. Avery and I have to follow their rules because if Avery or I disobey what they have told us to do we will get in big trouble, and still have to do it.

Avery and mine are to follow any directions they give me or Avery in the whole time we live.

On How To Treat Mom (100 words)
Dear Mom, I am sorry about my behavior and my words. I have not been nice to you lately or done the right thing.

I have had bad mornings lately and bad afternoons. It is a bad idea to treat you like that because you are my mom. You tell me what to do, and I love you a lot. It is also a bad idea because you are the boss, and I should listen and do the right thing and treat you like I want to be treated. I love you and you are the best mom ever.

Next time I should tell you what I want and we could settle it during breakfast.

On How To Respond When Mom or Dad Give a Direction (150 Words)
When Mom and Dad call me I should say I am coming then should come as soon as I start talking. (I should ask what Mom or Dad want.) When I find out what they want I say, "Yes, sir or yes, mam." When they say what they want from me I should do what they say immediately. After I do what they ask I should ask if there is anything else I could do to help. If they say there is, I should say, "like what?" If they say there is not any work to do I should say, "ok" and not bother them again. My behavior on Sun was really bad! When Mom called and said, "we have to go because Avery is fussy." I said, "No!" I should of said, "Yes, Mam," then came I would not be grounded.

Kids

Funny things my kids have done recently:

Avery

• At the end of my exercise, I was stretching and had my head down. Avery came over and tried to lift my face and said, "Matter, Baby? Matter?"
• Matt put a piece of sour candy in his mouth and shouted, "Holy..." Avery yelled, "Cow"! (thank goodness!)
• In church last week she was in rare form. She stood on the kneeler and bent down and said, "ready, set, go" and tried to jump from kneeler to chair. Later, while kneeling backwards in her chair, the chair started to tip over. I grabbed the chair before it tipped and set her on the floor. She exclaimed, "Wowee!" The people behind us started cracking up. So did we!
  

Elliot

• Shortly before the recent ice storm hit, the news reported a story on top items selling out at the grocery store. One of those items was bananas. Elliot wondered why bananas. I started to explain that since the power would be out [people wanted to buy food that didn't require refrigeration or cooking]. Before I finished, Elliot said, "Oh yea, since it will be dark it will be easy to find bananas because they're yellow."
• On a family trip to Aldi, Matt had to walk into the walk-in refrigerator to get milk. Elliot pushed the cart up against the door and pinned Matt in! Luckily, he didn't keep him in there for long and Matt thought it was pretty clever.
• Watching an IU game with Matt, Elliot wanted to know why they called the one guy Home Depot! (that's Oladipo)
  

A Good Problem to Have

In December, after weeks of not-so-great behavior and a couple total emotional breakdowns, we implemented a new discipline system for Elliot. Time!

The new system goes like this...

• Elliot earns time by getting himself ready for school in the morning. The faster he gets ready, the more time he earns. He has to get dressed, eat breakfast, clean up after himself, brush his teeth, and feed the cat. (What used to take 60 minutes, now takes 20!)
  
• Elliot loses time by not doing what he's told. Instead of repeating myself and getting frustrated, I just calmly tell him he lost time. (I've stopped yelling! It's been awesome!)
  
• Elliot can spend his time by choosing to stay up 30 minutes (max) past his normal bedtime to do something with Mom or Dad (usually a board or card game). We figured out that he can't stay up late on consecutive nights because he turns into a super grump.
  

For the past two weeks, his number of earned minutes has skyrocketed. He steadily carries more than an hour's worth of minutes. Elliot had 144 minutes earned as of this morning! I offered to let him trade in minutes for something bigger. For instance, he can turn in 90 minutes for a movie (not on a school night). So far, he hasn't taken me up on this. Matt says we just need to be meaner!

A hole in the wall

There's a hole in the wall. It's been there for years. It happened after years of a young red-headed boy slamming the bathroom door open against the wall. We put a door stopper on the hinge of the door to prevent the hole in the wall, but learned quickly two important facts. First, a door in a narrow hallway is not a good place to use such a stopper. The stopper doesn't allow the door to open all the way and so when the door is open it blocks the hallway. Second, these cute little door stoppers don't work well on hollow doors. So, there's a hole in the door, too!

The hole was patched over a couple years ago, awaiting paint that has yet to come. In the meantime, a certain young boy decided it would be best to push the plaster into hole, thus reopening it. So, there it sits--the hole in the wall.

Recently, Matt and I noticed a cute little girl grab a small toy out of her toy bin and run immediately to the hole in the wall. Then, the small toy was missing. "Did she just..." "I don't know. What did she have?" Just as quickly, cute toddler runs back to the other toys.

A couple days later, as I'm packaging empty food boxes (stuffing with newspaper and sealing with clear packing tape) for the cute little girl to use in her grocery cart, I see the same pattern--small toy, quick run to hole in wall, missing toy. I go over to check out the hole. Of course, I can't see anything inside of it. While cut toddler looks intrigued, I place the conveniently timed piece of packing tape over the hole. No more toys in the hole.

There's a hole in the wall, with toys in side. It's covered with packing tape. Honestly, we try really hard not to be rednecks, but sometimes it's hard.

A Happy New Year

One of my friends invited me to join a Happiness Project Group with her. The group is based on Gretchen Rubin's book, "The Happiness Project". We met at the end of 2010, having read the book and set up our individual happiness projects. This required us to contemplate what makes us happy and to devise a plan for each month of the year to work toward happiness.

My January Goals are based on Financial Peace! Financial Peace would certainly make me happy! Specifically, I have to reserve my credit card for emergencies only, not spend more than I have (as in, not spending into the "cushion" that is created when I know my automatic payments won't be deducted for another two weeks). I have also vowed to shop sales versus paying full price for things. Finally, I want to stop overbuying (as in, don't buy enough grocery staples to last a six months when I go to the grocery store weekly).

I had a pretty good budget going into the new year, but I tweaked it a bit. On paper, we can pay our bills and that's about it. I'm not sure how, but we are overspending like crazy. I need to be more cognisant of those times that our income is higher than budgeted and instead of spending frivolously, pay down our debt.

Wish me luck!