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!