Preschool graduation? June 10, 2010

Really? I thought as I sat down.

I had arrived early for Talula’s last day of school as we had been asked by the teachers thinking we were having a BBQ, not realizing there was going to be some kind of ceremony for a bunch of 3 year olds. I sat down beside my husband wanting to say “are you freaking kidding me? they are having a graduation ceremony for these little goof-balls?”. But I couldn’t, I was surrounded by other adoring parents who may have been a tad offended by my comment, so I kept my mouth shut and grinned and bared it. Thankfully, they didn’t come out wearing cap & gown (as my mother asked when I told her about the whole event); but I did come away having been grateful that I just witnessed the whole thing. Who knew?

The children all proceeded into the end of the gymnasium that they had blocked off for this event in pairs waving “flags” that they had made. And there was Talula waving that flag high and proud like it was the most important thing in the world to her. All the kids were in two’s – except Talula, she was marching to the beat of her own drum, not being unruly, just doing her own thing and lovin’ it. She was so utterly confident, so utterly at ease in front of a bunch of people, so utterly content with life. And then I thought “I need to nurture this, I can’t let this belief she has about the way she approaches life fade away”.

AND THEN I thought about where Talula and I would be if I hadn’t become so consumed by the concepts behind Parenting on Track. We’d be fighting. All the time. I’m an authoritarian, there is absolutely nothing permissive about me. Talula is my power child and WHOO BOY would we be butting our heads together like a bunch of stubborn male rams in heat if I hadn’t been blessed with the knowledge that I have been given by Parenting on Track. Seriously. Thor is my attention child, and probably would have fallen in line with my authoritarian ways but eventually would have come out the other side as an adult that didn’t have any respect for me. But Talula and I ~wow ~ our relationship, at her tender age of 3, would have already been explosive and ugly.

In the last few days I’ve started to have the realization that as an authoritarian, I have attached myself to the “discipline” (and I use that term for the lack of a better word – it’s not discipline in the normal sense) strategies of Parenting on Track fairly successfully. I give them the choices, I let them feel the consequences of their choices, I ask them what the responsibilities are that go with the privilege they are asking for, I say “yes, as soon as….”. All those, “you’re going to go with the flow of the family” or else (?) things. Not that there is an “or else”; but it’s suddenly how I’ve been feeling. And then I realized why. I have been using all these strategies for making our life smoother, but have not been giving enough attention to one crucial thing: our relationship with each other. I have been thinking, I think, that just parenting this way was enough to make that connection with my kids. I think I believed that just by not being the nag, not being the enforcer, not being loosy-goosy, not being the yeller etc etc was all I needed to do to build a solid relationship with my children. Not so. And it took a ridiculous pre-school graduation to let me see that.

So here is my goal for the summer: build the relationship stuff. Keeping going with all the other stuff, but focus on the love of my children.

Oh, and I have one more goal for the summer: teach Talula that in’s and out’s of why we wear underwear.

SO much complaining April 1, 2010

Oh my.

So I guess this is what follows a great week; a week full of dra-ma.

I am waiting for both TnT. Talula made it out the door first, no surprise there. I can see Thor in the mudroom; he chose not to do his board last night, and hence, now he is scrambling. I have to admit that I don’t know how I would handle this if his being late for school actually made me late for work. Since school starts so freakin’ early here, it is just not possible for him to make me late for work. I have a feeling I would not handle it well.

There have been many meltdowns the last couple of days when the words “yes, as soon as we go look at your remembery board” come out of my mouth. I get retorts like “You ALWAYS say that”; “that’s no fair”; “no, I’ll look at my remembery board after we do this, just this once, pleeease“. I keep saying to myself “they are just pushing back, they are just challenging me, it’s all good, it’s all good”.

I have also realized that I have to set my “what I’m willing to do” limits. So far I have recognized two and verbalized them both to my kids now. In the morning I am willing to help with remembery board before I head downstairs and get into my morning routine – and after that I am not willing to help until breakfast is over. I started to notice that with the two of them on different pages I was at their mercy for when they were ready and it was starting to make me grumpy. I felt as though I was training them so I could stop being the maid I had become their beck and call girl. That’s never a good thing to have on a resume. I also noticed the same in the evening – once I have sat down in the chair to read a book I have turned off the switch for the night, and in particular I don’t like waiting to say good night because in their mind something or other  needs to be done (a doll needs to be tucked in just so, or a lego needs to be placed in it’s special place). It sounds completely irrational but I noticed a several times that after I had read a book and it was now time to tuck into bed and say goodnight that when they wandered off to do something and left me standing there waiting for them, that I could feel my heart to ever so slightly begin to beat faster. This probably goes to the lateness thing – I don’t like waiting for people. So now I have acknowledged that – hopefully that will my heart relax and they know where I stand.

Also noticed something funny – they seem to feed off on anothers’ tantrums. This morning when Talula was freaking about her remembery board, Thor very calmly came to me and asked “can you help me with my board?” and yesterday it was the complete reverse in the evening. Even subtly – the competition NEVER STOPS.

Contributions – oy. March 23, 2010

Contributions have been the bane of my existence since we started family meetings. It is SO difficult for us; ridiculous. I spoke with Vicki about it quite a while ago and she said “well, maybe they just aren’t that important to you”; I don’t think that’s it. I love what contributions brings to the table, so to speak. But I find staying on top of it all, I guess, a challenge. In the end, it falls on my shoulders and my husbands – because if we don’t make it the thing to do next, then it won’t get done. For a while I had my own white board in the kitchen and that worked – so it’s time to go back to that. I have awful short-term memory – I’m the person who has forgotten your name 5 minutes into our first conversation. Just call me Pooh Bear, I have fluff between the ears that gets all tangled in the stuff that I can do really well. So to remember all the things I need to remember before we do something fun – it’s a challenge. OH MY GRACIOUS. Thor is me. OH. GOOD. GRACIOUS. How many times have a complained about that poor little monkey and his tendency towards distraction? Oh my God, short-term memory boy is same as short-term memory Mum. CRAP – well, I guess I should be thankful that it only took six years of his life to have that ah-ha. Frick, frick, frick, frick, frick.

Now, saying this I’m thinking: have you really ever done a time line for training for the various contributions? OK, maybe not. Have you made the list of what TnT can do & will, can do but won’t, and can’t do – I can say yes to that. Have you done a roadmap for it? Nope. Aw shit…

So I was actually thinking about a roadmap during the day before MomTV last night – and it was a big one – a year in length. When I first took this class I thought we had been told that the munchkins should be doing 1 contribution for each year of their age. Maybe I miss heard – maybe I confused the money rule of thumb – I can be very daft. So all this time I’ve been thinking “Frick, we are failing at even doing one a day – how on earth are we going to get up to 4 and 7 (looking a year down the road – my plan)”. Holy guacamole there is going to be some serious push back. Well, maybe I was wrong and the future doesn’t look so grim. So after MomTV – I’m thinking – piece of cake. Right now we have a bucket of contributions, various little pieces to a bigger puzzle – like the different parts of cleaning the bathroom is one contribution and as they get more capable they slowly get squished into one larger contribution.

I’m rambling – still blown over by the short-term memory ah-ha. I’ll be back.

Are you hiding in the kichen? March 8, 2010

Asks my husband.

Yes. I. Am.

What are you going to do about it? Besides I’m listening to Vicki’s “Roadmap” webinar.

I was in fact, po’d about the end of my morning on the mountain at the hands of Talula and I had, for the most part, kept it inside. I got a bit short with Talula when we got home, but I snapped out of it and got it all together. But I truly had no desire to “hang out”, so I took the opportunity to do dishes (?). I’m sure my husband will pipe up about how much I hate/don’t do dishes so it kinda explains my mind-set.

So I continued to listen to all of the audio of the Roadmap event, and it was a good thing – not just for what I learned about the roadmap. At the end of the class Vicki mentioned working hard to find time to connect – taking 10 minutes to lock yourself away somewhere with one child, placing that child on your lap to remember HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THEM. Tears. Frick, frick, frick. I’m standing in the kitchen, scrubbing the sink getting teary. Frick.

Snapped me out of it. I know that this wasn’t about skiing – so what, maybe Talula will never like skiing – and really, not a big deal, I can barely get down much more than an easy blue. So skiing is clearly not that big a deal to me. It was…what? The time spent together as a family? Probably. The fact that I had spent 10 or so days with everyone home from school followed by Talula getting sick and keeping her home even longer – and I needed to get out? Probably. Bah, I’m over it. What a nutter I can be. I got out for a x-c ski early this am with my 8 year old pup.

So, roadmaps. I have had three thoughts on roadmaps. Thor’s ability to get easily distracted and then getting de-railed with what ever task is at hand – it’s a button for me. Seems like a good place to start and then Talula’s desire to not wear pull-ups at night. I have completely backed off and she has recently chosen to wear pull-ups at night. Not sure if this is something I can do a road map for, but it seems to be something she wants to stop doing, so I thought I’d ask her about it. Maybe three is too young, we’ll see. And then me, bossy, bossy, bossy. So there’s my place for a roadmap – now I just have to make the maps. Eeek.

Do you know what time it is? February 22, 2010

OMG. Sometimes I am amazed my kids are not already ruined. One of the things I noticed in do nothing say nothing was how often I wasn’t saying “15 minutes before we leave”, “20 minutes to clean up before bedtime”, “2 more minutes in the shower”, “we have to leave NOW or we will be late”. Jimminy. It took that (and Talula crying shortly after DNSN while she said “no! don’t put the timer on!”) to realize “OMG, they don’t have wall clocks in their bedrooms”. They have little itty bitty alarm clocks that bark and quack – but nothing to refer to and learn from. Are you kidding me? It took me this long to figure this one out? Oh well. Here we go.

So, once again I find myself living in the middle of paradise, but needing something that I wasn’t willing to spend an arm and a leg for. I could load them up in the car and drive to that place I won’t name, that I really avoid shopping at if at all possible. Sometimes I wanna smack that smiley face. But no, I won’t do it. Besides, what’s more torturous for a child – a 40 minute car ride each way for a 5 minute project? On to the computer I went in search of options – there are lots – but I stumbled on a good one. Etsy. Why I didn’t start there, I have no idea. So if you are in need for a reasonably priced, fun and eco-friendly clock shop (the clocks are old vinyl albums) then go to Bearly Art. They do custom orders, but I don’t have the need to be matchy-matchy with my kids rooms and I had no desire to wait the three weeks. So the next morning I took my kids on their first internet shopping experience and let them pick out their own clocks. They arrived today; totally cute and completely quiet – no hearing the hands move.  So now I have started the process of looking at the clock with them and let them learn how time passes instead of waiting to hear the beep of the timer. The beep of the timer really taught them NOTHING – except to panic when it went off.

I started this post a while ago – never took the time to finish it.

It’s been working well – Thor in particular will look at the clock and ask questions about how much time is left – he even notices that the clock downstairs and then one in his room show different times. Talula is young enough that she is not getting much out of it at this point, but she will be ahead of the game I am sure when she is Thor’s age.

Why doesn’t Google have this map program? February 9, 2010

Seriously. I want to get from to point A, which is: wake up, make sure both of them are getting dressed, have them check they’re remembery boards, ask what they want for breakfast and, well you know the rest. I want to arrive at point B: wake up, pour my cup of coffee and let the morning continue without my involvement, and I need it to all happen in – ooh, let’s say 2 years. Maybe 3? Now Google geniuses, give me the directions that I can print up and email/text to my husband’s phone. OH and if every few months you could throw in the directions to a rockin’ restaurant – Vietnamese, Greek, Japanese, etc – mix it up, that would be perfect. Thanks.

Ok, reality check.

So Vicki said something last night that gave me an ah-ha! When thinking about what ever goal is at the end of your roadmap, think about how to get there with the mistaken goals of behaviour in mind. Vicki hasn’t talked about how to turn that mistaken behaviour into productive behaviour – those are the crucial c’s and I’m guessing those will come up in the next week or two. But my ah-ha, was “OK, I am starting to really see how this roadmap works with all this stuff we are learning. Think of that child, or the behaviour, on the roadmap in terms of the mistaken goal, take appropriate crucial c and then add all other details required to get to my destination”, OMG, how many times have I taken this program?

Coffee calls.

OMG! The iPod boogie works!!! February 1, 2010

So yesterday I was once again feeling like I was being held hostage by my 3 year old. Her dad and big bro were off skiing and she had asked if we could go swimming, to which I said “yes, as soon as you blah, blah, blah”. Can’t remember now. Nothing happened. OK. So on I moved with my morning, waiting for her to ask me for something – she didn’t ask for anything. NOTHING. She did however, help herself to a couple bags of trail mix. Most of which she ate, except for the sunflower seeds which she proceeded to spread all over our table and floor. She got help from our dog with the stuff on the floor – but the table was a disaster. So I went about my day trying to do stuff that I thought she would find boring and eventually ask to go swimming again. Nope. The boring stuff well, it bored her, so she found other stuff to get into and I slowly felt my blood pressure rising. So I came up to my room and turned on iTunes to listen to music – and that brought her in and captivated her – and I had the ah-ha. The boring stuff – watching me read etc – just makes her want to go do other things because they’re are BORING. I have to find something she wants to do! I couldn’t go outside – because she’d get dressed on her own and follow me. So – finally it dawned on me – the iPod!!!! So I put it on and started to dance around like a white girl with no rhythm and she came like a moth to the light. “Can I put those in my ears Mummy?” “Absolutely, as soon as you clean up the trail mix on the table”. And off she went!!!! Now I think I need to find tune it from this point on – ’cause she cleaned for a wee bit – and then decided – hey what Mum is doing looks like way more fun that what I’m doing. So, she started to follow me around booging away – no cares about the fact that she couldn’t hear the tunes – just danced away. Did I mention she was naked too? Now, I never actually got angry at any point, but I was not happy about the way my day was turning out. And then, that little kid started dancing away, to what ever was in her head, without a care in the world and all I could do was laugh. Who cares about the trail mix; we’ll take care if it after her nap – which she did, because she really wanted to go to a friends house for dinner. Yum.