Finally, something that works

If you know me, you know my brain doesn't work in an organized fashion. I enjoy the concept of organization and I'm capable of maintaining simple organization...but ask me to make a daily plan or stick to a routine or come up with a organizational system and I'm at a loss.

So, you can imagine, chore charts have not been a part of my children's lives. I've tried many, many different charts. Written charts, sticker charts, magnetic charts, moving a paper from one side to another, computerized charts...nothing has stuck.

But then one of my MOFs mentioned an idea that I thought was brilliant. She makes "media bucks" for her kids. They earn a media buck for exercising and something else that I don't remember. Each buck was worth 30 mins of computer/TV/video game time. So I thought "I can do that" and talked to Dave about it and he created some physical media bucks and we started it.

Turns out...keeping track of those little paper dollars and who had how many and how to earn them was outside the realms of my organizational abilities.

So then Dave took over and revamped it in such a way that I'm capable of keeping it up. All I have to do is go to the webpage he made and add the amount they earn. If they want to use one, I click use. If they lose any for bad behavior, I click minus. They also have the option of trading them in for money or prizes which cuts down on their media time.

The best part is when I want extra chores done I can just offer X media bucks and I have eager kids ready for chores! It's amazing! And I've actually kept it going for a while now. I'm kinda amazed at myself. :) Not to mention, I'm sitting here blogging while one kid cleans the kitchen, another is folding laundry and a third is cleaning the playroom. Yay for cheap labor!

Clara and the binky...

Despite my attempts to force a binky on all of my children at one point or another, not a single one of them has succumbed. They all made it through their infant and toddler years without any sort of binky dependence.

Until now.

Clara has been the baby for a couple years. Not just the baby of our family, but the baby of the extended families on both sides. Apparently, she was aware of this fact and quite liked it.

About 6 months ago my brother had a baby. They live in a different town than us so Clara didn't have much interaction with her new cousin. But when my sister had a baby a few weeks ago and we went to visit, Clara realized there were TWO new babies and she was a little perturbed.

At one point she gave Ethan his first bonk on the head by a kid bigger than him, then later after he had played in his exersaucer for a while, Clara wanted in. So I went ahead and put her in and she flopped down in it and said "I'M THE BABY!"

I laughed at her and life went on.

Then I weaned her which she was a total champ about. I told her, her 'nurns' (that's how she said nurse) were all gone and she was like "oh...ok" and never nursed again. Easy. Painful for me...but easy.

So we've been watching my other sisters daughter and my friends kids on a fairly regular basis and Clara sees that her best friends have binkies. She apparently processed this for a while and one day refuses to go sleep without her binky. The top of an old bottle that I cut to make it easier for her to drink smoothies out of.

(side note...took this pic with my fun new hisptamatic iphone app)


THEN...she came across her old binky that has been floating around her room for the last year. It was more of a toy than anything else but she knew what it was and was like "MY BINKY!" That night I let her use that one instead of the bottle and apparently she liked it better. She now refuses to lay down without her "rabbit binky" (I think that means 'regular binky') and I officially have a 2 yr old that thinks she needs a binky. Right at the time that, had she taken a binky as an infant, I'd be trying to take it away. Yippee.

St Patty's Day

This is currently taped to my front door.



One of my kids is terrified of leprechauns. And usually on St. Patty's Day, the leprechauns come and play jokes/pranks around the house, trailing chocolate gold coins as they go. But they've been banned tomorrow.

I wonder if they'll leave in a huff or be nice and leave some chocolate coins on the front porch?

Karma?

I started a blog about happiness today. It was about having a positive attitude and putting a positive spin on anything. It was sounding too preachy so I ditched it. I continued to think about it though.

Then I was putting away my groceries and I opened my garage door to go to the pantry. I took a step out and landed on a wire paint roller on the top step which spun out from under me and tossed me mercilessly to the cement floor. I grumbled, thought some naughty words and limped over to the pantry. I opened it and a container of oats fell out, hit me on the head and spilled all over.

That's when I decided to forego my sunshine and bubbles post for this one. If nothing else you can amuse yourself with the image. It was straight out of a physical comedy script, I'm sure.

Observations by Gabe

"Mom, did you know everything is made in China? Except maybe bean bags."

"Mom, did you know all red boxes are stuffed full of DVD's? I wish I had a red box."

And some answers to some questions my cousin asked him for her child development class...

1) Where do the stars go during the day?

Maybe in a house. Maybe somebody bought a house for the stars to go in. They stay in there until tomorrow.

2) Why is the sky blue when it's sunny outside?

His first answer was "just because" but I pressed him for more specifics and he said this... Maybe after night time and the stars go in their house and somebody closes the door so it's very sunny out. Maybe that's the thing. Oh! Maybe first the stars color the sun and the sky and the clouds before they go in their house. Maybe.


3) Where does dirt come from and what makes it?

Well if it's still the first day then the stars just color it too. Oh and worms just crawl around in the dirt.

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PS...this was my 500th blog post. I hereby repent of my blogging absence and will return forthwith.