This morning Eve took a pretend nap and Lex sang her to sleep. It was so cute, but when I turned on the camera Lex lost interest. I should have stayed out of their game. Oh well.
After dinner tonight Alan had a very silly conversation with the kids. He told them that he was a weirdo, and I married him so I must be a kook, and we had them, so that makes them loonybins. They laughed like loonybins!
The kids have been driving me crazy lately with their “potty talk.” Mostly lots of poop and farts and other childish words thrown in to every single sentence. It was driving me crazy. I tried lots of things from asking them a million times to stop (yeah, like that works!) to asking them to go to the bathroom (“Oh mom, I won’t say it again so I’ll just stay here.”) to yelling and carrying them to their room (fun for all), but nothing was working.
Then my genius mind decided to kick it old school. Last summer a friend was telling me that she has her 8yr old daughter write lines whenever she gets sassy. Sassiness is a tough thing to discipline. I thought it was quaint at the time, but upon further consideration it made lots of sense. It was a consequence that didn’t involve me yelling, they get to practice their writing skills, maybe they would even chill on the potty talk.
I introduced the idea at dinner one night, two weeks ago. I would tape a piece of paper to the fridge and each time I heard them say something I would make a tally mark. Each morning they’d have to write the number of lines corresponding to their tally marks from the day before. Lex almost cried just thinking about it! After dinner the kids were in the living room cleaning up and someone said something and they both came running in to tattle. I told them it only counts when Alan and I hear it. They insisted on putting one line under each name. Um, ok.
The next morning they both wrote one line and went about their day. With no more potty words! It seemed to good to be true!! Sort of it was. Over the past few days Lex has had to write lines twice and neither time was much fun. Last Tuesday was a big fight (a good show for Lauren!) and this morning was a little fight. Eve also had a line to write this morning, but she did it happily. Tomorrow she has five to write! That’s the most either of them have ever had. We’ll see how that goes.
The second night we were doing this new plan I thanked them both for toning down the potty talk, but I said I was a little bummed because I was hoping they would both gets lots of handwriting practice! Lex said he could write other things instead of his lines :)
Day two he decided to make them as messy as possible. I said ok to the first one but told him the next line had to be neater. Each day he threatens all sorts of cute threats, such as “I’ll throw this in the recycling bin if you make me write more!” :)
Lex on top, Eve on bottom.
Eve puts dark lines between her words and likes to make her “o” as filled in circles. If you don’t watch her carefully she starts to doodle all over the page :) Not bad for a four year old though! When she wrote the final R in “words” she narrated to herself, “first a bump, then a line, then a kick!”
Today's lines. Much neater.
It’s August already! Can you believe it?! I still haven’t even started using my fancy summer schedule. Oh well. I like to think I’m an organized, scheduled person… but you all know the truth. I get the occasional help with chores they like (bathrooms and changing sheets, go figure!) but mostly they just play and I do my thing and life goes on. Fast! Have you heard it’s August already? We have been able to check off several things from our summer to-do list (go camping, play at the lake, ride a train, and more), but there is still much more to do (like visit the Atlantic Ocean!).
Alan started his new job today. He said it went well. He came home exhausted and went to bed with the kids :) Like the first day of school. I’m sure we’ll hear more about that as he settles in.
I don’t really have much to say right now but I wanted to just check in. I know some of you go through withdrawal when I don’t post for awhile :) You know who you are.
I don’t even have any good pictures. Seriously. We haven’t been doing much of anything. Today’s highlight was grocery shopping. Tomorrow we are going to try and go blueberry picking again. We went last week but the picking was slim so tomorrow we’ll try a new place that just opened for the season. Not new, just different, it’s where we used to go when the kids were smaller. I wanted to go today but grocery shopping took priority. Real food was necessary. I still haven’t had a chance to make blueberry jam yet. Each time we pick berries we eat them all before I get to it. That will change tomorrow! I hope.
Here are a few photos to round out this compelling blog post. Enjoy.
Lex set up a charging station for his trains, complete with batteries and all. He's his father's boy, through and through!
Learning math skills together. Check out www.khanacademy.org. It's pretty amazing.
"Look Mom! Do you want to take a picture of us?"
You know I do little boy, you know I do.
Seriously. The grocery store. Aren’t you glad you read to the end of this post?!
(seriously though we are totally enjoying our laid-back days. the other day we rode bikes in the morning, played outside with the neighbors in the afternoon, then went out to dinner at a diner. at bedtime Lex told me the day was too busy and the next day should be quieter. it was.)