Can you get me a straw Mumma? June 11, 2010

“Yes, as soon as you do your contribution”; “actually I’ll get a straw myself”.

I believe raising my kids to be capable just turned around and bit me in the arse.

“can you open this for me?”; “yes….yada, yada, yada”. And still she stubbornly tried to open it herself; used her teeth on the cap, banged it on the table a couple times for good measure, growled at it a couple times to see if she could scare it open. Nope, that didn’t do the trick. She just sat for a few minutes, contemplating I think, then got down and went to the dishwasher to unload it. Victory for all – contribution done & yogurt drink opened to enjoy yumminess.

Celebrate good times! June 9, 2010

Come on! There’s a party going on right here, a celebration to last throughout the year.

Now I’m not the only one who will have that song stuck in my head for the day! Enjoy.

We had family meeting last night and when we got to contributions we talked about how we’ve being doing – and it was unanimously agreed that we’ve been doing well. My husband asked if we thought we could build on the work we’ve been doing for each contribution and Thor put his hand in the air (school trains them well) and suggested that if we’ve had a certain contribution, the next time we get it we do two things and the next time we do 3 etc. It was amazing, because even though Dad started the conversation Thor owned the idea and I’m hoping that this will help make him agreeable when it comes down to it.

So this morning Thor’s contribution was the washroom and we talked about what that next thing was that he wanted to do and then on his own he decided what he wanted to do in the morning before breakfast and what he wanted to do in th afternoon before dinner. It was a great moment and SO peaceful.

(aside: I’m in the car waiting, Talula just came out and here comes Thor wearing his soccer socks pulled all the way up; and being soccer socks they are so long that it looks like he’s wearing stockings under his shorts. Cute.)

Two nights ago Vicki talked about the summer routine – and I am looking forward to summer. I have been thinking about starting back at the beginning this summer, and I think I will right after my parents visit is over and we get back from out first road trip. I quite sure I don’t have the gumption to DNSN with Granny and Papa around. So in a month or so I will be back freaking out about the state of our house. But summer time seems like a good time to let everything go down the tube for a few days.

Contribution Roadmap speed bump April 29, 2010

Aw Jeeeeeeez. This one is hard.

Thor had declared early in the day that he had done his contribution already – despite being completely skeptical that this was the truth I said “ok”. Then I went to the PonT forum and posted away with what I believed was the way to approach this, but was unsure. Vicki encouraged me with the way to go, so now here goes.

So he’s been giving the new “yes, as soon as you do your contribution”. The flip out ensued with cries of “why can’t I play with your iPod when I have already done my contribution” nothing from me “why do you think I haven’t done my contribution” silence “I woke up after you and Daddy went to bed, turned the lights on and did my contribution” silence “do you think I’m not telling the truth?” silence “why don’t you believe me on the contribution?” silence “Mum, mum, mumma!?” silence “Why don’t you trust me anyways?”And now the tears. Now he hit the nail on the head with the words ‘trust’; the thing that originally lead me to say ‘ok’ when he first declared he had done it – I want him to know I trust him. And now here I am questioning his words. It does not feel good, even though I know there is NO WAY he got up in the middle of the night to clean the bathroom.

Holy, how on earth do I ignore all these questions???? He is smarter than me, the little monkey; and he’s only 6. How on earth am I going to keep up when he’s 16?

How do I answer/not answer the question “why do you not believe me that I did my contribution?”

So I walked away, when it was clear that just being around him and ignoring the full on freak-out was not enough. He just came up to me with another long-winded explanation for how it was done in the middle of the night and then ended it with “if you let me play with your iPod, I’ll do my contribution again. Do you want me to do my contribution two times?”. Good gravy. He’s relentless.

Ok, onwards. Moving us forward. Somehow.

Well, no need.

I literally hit the publish button as he was coming up stairs. He went into the washroom, I went in while he was searching around for something and asked “whatcha looking for?” he said “a sponge, I forgot that I hadn’t done my contribution last night, I had a dream that I had, but I hadn’t”.

LOVE HIM.

SUCH a good week April 27, 2010

The school vacation is over, and I would have to say that we had a great week – all around, inside and out. The last school break we had I f’d up. Bad; I let it all slide (’cause it’s vacation right?) and held up no expectations. This week I was committed, and solidly expected everyone – me included – to step up. And EVERYONE did. Everyone and then some. Most of the mornings Thor came out of his room and without changing (because it’s vaca, ya just get to wear jammies) went down to do his contribution, and then sometimes helped Talula remember, and sometimes even helped her. It was truly magical.

I had to push Thor over to the other side – had to get him through his gauntlet of “I don’t knooooow”s, and it was uncomfortable, truly. But the other side is sooooo worth the struggle, I can’t express. On top of all this – or possibly the former was a result of this: we got to celebrate a roadmap. I came to the end of a good roadmap and I decided to break out dessert to celebrate – we all love dessert, and I don’t make it often – entirely because I adore dessert (there is always room for dessert) and I have NO self-control. So we had dessert one day after lunch and I talked about how I noticed how hard Thor had been working on getting out the door to school these days. I swear, the next day was entirely drama free and in general he has been stepping up, taking the lead ever since and I have seen Talula follow his example. So I guess as I write, I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg; but we’re reaping the rewards and having eggs for breakfast and roast chicken for dinner.

It. feels. so. good.

Thank you V.

The sounds of this morning… April 19, 2010

Were like music to my ears. It’s vacation week here, and it is my goal to firmly follow my roadmap this week. The last time we had a school vacation I got lazy and let all the hard work everybody had been doing slide and we had to start all over.

So this morning TnT woke early as usual and I hear one of them go into the washroom and then head downstairs; a few minutes later I heard the tinkling of the dishes in the dishwasher. Hmmmm…could it be? Thor’s contribution this week is the kitchen and per my roadmap I asked him what he thought a clean kitchen looked like. After much drama and a bunch of “I don’t know”s and some more questions from me to make sure he understood what I was asking he said “nothing on the counter”. Fine. Great starting point. And then this morning happened and I was lying in bed thinking “is he unloading the dishwasher?” How cool. Then he came back upstairs and by this point Talula had come out of her room and he asked her “have you done your contribution? No? OK, let’s do it.” Did I mention it was 6 o’clock in the morning and their Dad and I were still in bed? I almost fell out of bed. So then they proceeded to clean the upstairs bathroom – ok, so it just meant spraying cleaning stuff everywhere and rubbing it a bit with a sponge. But how awesome is it that this was how they started their day. I have been firmly following my plan for 6 DAYS and this is where we are already?!!! Wahooooooo! Granted, it’s not like I haven’t made attempts at this before, so it’s not completely coming out of left field for them, but really, how cool is this? Such a cool thing. No drama, no being angry because it’s vacation and I’m having a battle over what they need to do before we get to go do fun things. Yummy.

Another change I’ve noticed is the decreased number of times that Thor goes to the “I don’t know” card. The other day I asked him something inane like “do you want to take a shower before dinner or before family meeting”. He opened his mouth and I heard the words “I don’t….” trickle out of his mouth and then he stopped, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye with a grin, and he said “before family meeting”. Love him. He’s working so hard.

Trip mapped out, finally April 14, 2010

Ok. Seriously, I was on my computer trying to figure out how to get from JFK to Manhattan (yay! Except that I’m going solo, no hubby, booo) googling all the maps etc to figure out how to get into the city without paying the $50 cab fare (or whatever it is). Then it occurs to me that I have yet to do my contribution roadmap. So, NYC roadmap done, now on to my family.

I have now mapped out a year long “master” map – and that has been broken into 2 separate roadmaps; starting with a 3 month one and finishing with a bigger 9 month map. The goal of the first one is about being CONSISTENT - them (TnT) conistently doing the contributions 2 times a day and me consistently holding their feet to the fire and expecting them to contribute to this family. The goal of the second one is to then bring the contributions up to a level that reflects their ages.

We started yesterday, Talula had school, Thor did not (and I started on this day with a purpose). As I expected when they each asked for breakfast and we gave them a “yes, as soon as”. Talula continued on her little way, doing her own thing, couldn’t care less that she was about to head off to school with an empty stomach. The Florence Henderson Mom from the Brady Bunch was sitting on one shoulder nattering in my ear about what an evil mother I was sending her off to school without food. What about all those studies that say children with empty stomachs can’t concentrate properly in school and they all become delinquents? Ha, what about that? Then I had the other Mum in my other ear – some combination of my own beliefs, what I learned from the Mum I grew up with and what I have learned (THANK GOODNESS) from Vicki. Na, she’ll be fine. What could a three year old possibly have to concentrate on? Blocks? Baby dolls? Kitchen sets? Sandboxes? They give them a snack at school anyway. OK, so I compromised, came down somewhere in the middle and gave her a banana in the car.

Then there was Thor. Oh boy. He went ape-s–t. Excuse the french. And that is why I started on a day he didn’t have school.  It lasted, more or less, in some form, ALL DAY. He had breakfast when we got home from dropping Talula off at school ’cause he did one thing on his board. Then came lunch “yes, as soon as” and the growling started. Literally. That’s his new thing; he growls at us like a beast when he is “displeased”. Eventually he stormed into his room, crawled under his covers and fell asleep. When he woke, his first words were “I’m hungry”; not feeding him felt inhumane, so gave him a huge snack and talked about what he could do after his snack.

This morning, was better, but still filled with a tad of drama. Little wee angelic Talula thinks that hiding her pictures is all that is required to get out of doing her board. So, she got an as soon as when she asked for breakfast. She ignored that, and proceeded to get herself some grapes, the box of rice krispies – which she ate dry because we hid the milk in the fridge (we are AWFUL, aren’t we?). Finally she asked again, and went up with her Dad this time to look at the board – still no pictures, so still nothing done. We shall see what this evening brings. Thor, he got it done with a bit of grumbling, but no growling.

Contribution road trip!!! March 30, 2010

Here we go. As I have said, this is one of the areas that my husband and I have struggled with SO much. And I for one, am not calling SHOT GUN this time round!

After the contribution portion of family meetings on MomTV last week, I decided to re-work our contribution bag, so also it seemed like a good time to do a roadmap to get on track.

Our contributions used to be little pieces of what would eventually become a whole job. After listening to Vicki, I realized that the way I was doing it had me in charge of when/how the jobs got larger and that would certainly result in some resistance and push back from TnT. Instead of having toilet, bathtub, sink, garbage etc etc etc as individual jobs that would slowly be combined into larger jobs; it is now simply “washroom”. This also allowed me to ask what they believed the washroom contribution (and others) involved and thus gave me the starting point to my road map.

So tonight was our first family meeting since I decided that we should make some changes. I’d had to say that the success rate was moderate. They didn’t balk at the “new” contributions and when I explained that they would tell us what they believed each contribution involved I believe that Thor was excited about that. SO, we each drew our contribution out of the bag and then went around and asked what they thought each one involved. Talula, being 3, required some guidance with “laundry” because she went right to “hang it on the rack” which is one of the things she enjoys doing with me; so we worked backwards a bit and got to the starting point of laundry. We continued to get through 2 out of the remaining three that were picked this week and we were left with “kitchen”. When we asked Talula what she thought it involved she went into problem solving mode (?funny?) and was a tad incomprehensible because we weren’t inside the brain of a three year old. Then we asked Thor his thoughts and he pulled out the good ole “I don’t knooow”. Having just been through something similar with him on Saturday, it all felt familiar, so with the eye communication set between his dad and I, we let the time run out.

For. the. first. time. ever.

Phew. I almost caved a few times, asking leading questions – but he wasn’t taking the bait anyway, and continue to flounder in his cries of “I don’t know”. My husband and I declared the meeting over and Talula asked for the treat (Thor’s choice: black licorice) and it was explained we would not be having a treat tonight. They both actually got over it fairly quickly and neither of them asked about money, which surprised me a bit. So, not a rousing success, but not a flop either. AND we got the first failed meeting under our belt – which I’m sure should have happened about 2 years ago, but we were too afraid to let it happen. Parents (ie: ME) can be such suckers.

The week in review March 27, 2010

Wrote this last night…forgot to publish.

This week I was note-taker for family meeting. I was taking notes for appreciations and I started to write my childrens’ names, instead of her real name I started to write ‘Talula’ – it seems to be the way I’m starting to think of them and it made me giggle a bit.

Until this week, it seemed that I spend less time in the car waiting, and as a result I have less time to write. Good for my family and my general sanity and bad for my blog. Oh well. But this week there seemed to be a bit more time in the car.

My roadmap was…..successful. He was late for school one day-late enough to get a late slip, but he missed it by mere minutes. I’m not just going on whether or not he gets a pink slip from school – in the end I could really care less about his school attendance record right now. The other two days we got out on time. He successfully got ready the night before school every day, now it’s just the getting out the door without getting into play in the morning. Now that I’ve had my ah-ha about me & distracto-boy, I can start to help him with that. Moving forward we  have to keep on target and I have to stay calm & patient. I will admit that on Friday, with Thor all ready to go to school, we both sat in the car waiting for Talula and I felt my blood pressure rising. I gave into my racing heart and went back to the house and got short with Talula and ushered her out the door so that she didn’t cause Thor to be late. Patience, patience, patience. Keep calm and carry on. So for the next two weeks until the roadmap is done I have to keep it together and Thor has to get out the door ready for his day on time, most of the time. And I have to keep training for the next step.

Contributions have gone from ‘Oy!’ to ‘Yeah!’ in the blink of an attitude change. The first morning after our family meeting I was hunkered down for a fit from Thor. His contribution was the compost and it’s was miserably wet and cold outside. Nothing. No complaints, he just saw an adventure I think. Seems I’m a little guilty of anthropomorphism when it comes to my monkey, because the thought of having to go outside in that whether before I had my coffee made ME cringe, not so for Thor. And the next day Talula went to join Thor in the adventure and then went on to do her own. The third day Thor came down, still in pj’s on stepped into his rubber boots and asked for the compost. There was none since he had asked to do it a second time the previous evening. I can’t explain the change in attitude from TnT – the contributions were same, us adults weren’t doing anything exceptionally different, maybe it was just a vibe. I have decided to make some changes based on this week with Vicki on MomTV – we’ll see how that goes at this weeks meeting.

I have to say that overall I have been amazed by this week. Something clicked and it is such a good feeling. In doing PonT again I see that in previous go-rounds with the program I have taken bits and pieces of the program that worked for us at the time and used them. Now I feel as though we have fully immersed ourselves in it for the first time and I see the difference. I am OK with the baby steps that it took to get to this point, because I’m not sure we had the gumption to immerse ourselves fully the first time round and come out smiling on the other side.

What is going on in this house?! March 24, 2010

Thor just asked if he could do his contribution again! THIS time the words that came out of my mouth were “ok”.

AND THEN Thor stayed right on track with his remembery board. I think he even may have remembered without looking at the board what was next after he was finished with one task. I am speechless and cheering on the inside. If I could do one of those crazy leg over the head kicks, I’d be doing one of those too. Really I’m just signing the Lionel Richie’s “Celebration” song in my head. Yes, I was a teenager in the 80s.

Now they are talking about sleeping together; and first they had it all worked out who was going to sleep where and for how long and then all of a sudden Talula said “I want to sleep in my own bed” and Thors’ simple reaction was “ok”.

AND THEN Talula went down stairs to get Thor a bowl of Cheerios to keep in his room in case he got hungry.

It has been a good night. An incredible night. Wow.

Sheesh March 24, 2010

Yesterday after dinner Talula came to me and said “I want to do my contribution”. I don’t know why, but I opened my mouth – I need to remember more to KEEP MY YAP SHUT. I said (gulp) “You did your contribution this morning”. As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I was shocked at my dumbness. But, she was un-phazed, thank goodness, and said “I know, I want to do it again”. HUH? So off she went to clean out the tub of toys that I had been waiting to give her a ‘yes, as soon as’ for and proceeded to clean the damn thing. Did that really just happen?

I hate it when my kids make me look so daft, first I do all the complaining about how hard it is for me to get into the contribution groove with my kids and how on earth am I ever going to get them to do it twice a day…

Little Talula, keeping me in line.