I have a problem when… March 30, 2010

…people hit me. This was the problem from a family meeting in early March.

So here is where I admit that I fell asleep on the couch last night, and did not see MomTV. I vaguely remember my husband waking me up from my couch slumber and saying “time to go to bed”. I believe that was around 9:00pm and the thought of MomTV did not even cross my foggy mind. As it turns out, because of troubles with internet etc, I didn’t miss much – much to the frustration of those involved last night I’m sure.

Anyway. Here’s how the problem solving went….

“I don’t remember hitting Talula” Thor says with a bit of grump in his voice. I say “this doesn’t mention your name at all, no name, no blame remember?”. And with that he moved on. It can be tough with two kids – because clearly right now in our lives the problems on the agenda are about one another. I assume with age this will change to the greater problems with life and not feel so accusatory.

Neither of my kids can write, so we have been suggesting drawing for a while. So when Talula drew this picture I wrote the problem down at the top of her drawing. Mostly out of curiosity, to see if she was drawing something that meant something to her. So at the meeting we held up the first picture – this one;

and asked – does anyone remember what problem this picture is about? Talula immediately piped up and told us exactly what the problem was about. I don’t remember when she drew it – but it was more than a week prior to the meeting (maybe 2) because at our previous meeting she was sick but decided to join us even though she was feeling less than stellar and my husband and I decided to just do appreciations and contributions to keep the meeting short.

So we moved onto the solutions;

• drive away and not come back
• go up to bedroom when someone hits us
• walk away
• tell that person how it makes us feel to be hit
• ask them to stop and if they don’t, walk somewhere else

I believe the first solution made someone sad, so it was scratched. Then we talked about how the remaining solutions had a similarity to them and they then got morphed into: tell the person hitting how it makes us feel and ask them to stop, and if they don’t walk away to another place. Right now when we vote we simply do thumbs up or thumbs down. This solution got a 4 thumbs up.

I want to scream!!!!! February 22, 2010

That’s how I felt 15 minutes ago. We were trying to get out of the house to head to the play ground and we hit a snag. It’s the first day of vacation, and in my head I was screaming and I had already decided the whole week was ruined.

Then my oldest monkey started problem solving and it nearly brought me to tears.

Here’s the story. We were leaving the house, which meant the bucket had to go on my dog’s head. That’s right, I said I had to put the bucket on her head. She had an encounter with the metal edge of a tele-ski and now has staples in her paw. It’s small and she is just fine; and with any luck our thick-headed lab might learn something about chasing ski tips – doubtful though. Anyway, she messes with the staples, so when she’s left alone – on goes the bucket. So I grabbed the beautiful blue plastic bucket, but the rope which holds it on was missing. I have a fairly good idea which tiny fingers were responsible, but I am not placing blame. I simply said that I wasn’t willing to leave her alone to chew on her paw, so the rope needed to be found. We all searched, no one took responsibility. So there was our day, done, and it took me mere minutes to reach that ridiculous conclusion. Then Thor started bringing me things we could use instead. The chain from his ski pass, a little tiny feather boa of Talula’s and then finally a plastic necklace which actually was long enough and did the trick.

So there we left Killie, sporting her blue bucket tied on with a black beaded pirates necklace looking about as mortified as you would expect for someone wearing a bucket. But it’s better than the small satellite dish the vet gives you.

Killie being protected by her Dad from the paparazzi