John and I took the boys out last week to look at Christmas lights. I fixed hot chocolate for John and myself. The boys got sippy cups of chocolate milk. And Wy had his first ride in a booster seat. Now, as soon as we head for the door, he starts letting me know he is going to be in a booster seat.
We had a rather big day in Owenland Park on Sunday; Mass was followed by breakfast with Santa. (The Knights of Columbus make some serious pancakes, people.)After my show, Mom, John and I took the kids to see The Princess and the Frog. The kids loved it. I couldn't believe they all sat quietly through virtually the whole movie. Ok - there was some scrambling around, but it was to refill their little paper cups with more popcorn.
Remember Abby & Connie taking that class at the Coterie? Well, one of our photographers took photos during the class one day and both Abby & Connie have made their way into the Coterie's upcoming class brochure! Abs is on the cover with a bunch of her classmates. Connie has an adorable little victory stance snapshot of herself on the inside cover. Pretty cute, huh!
We are constantly trying to keep the kids from running in the house. The house however, is conducive to running. On the mid level, the kids can run circles through the dinning room, living room and kitchen. After nearly a year of yelling at children for running in the house, we have come to the conclusion that we simply cannot beat them (that sounded bad didn't it?) - anyway, we might as well join them. We have given in and established running time. A few times a week we gather the kids together and give them 3 minutes on the timer to run themselves silly. Of course we have some accidents and people cry, but more often they run and laugh till they can't breathe. Frequently the kids can't even finish the 3 minutes. I tried to get a picture of them as they rounded the corner, but my camera was too slow to catch the whole group. I wound up with one great shot though. Look how happy Abby is here. Isn't that great?
A couple of our Board members attended staff meeting last week to discuss information from a recent theatre conference they attended. One of the comments that has really stuck with me - professionally and personally - was one that our Board President shared with us. "When you hear something that challenges you, change your physical stance." I am trying to adopt that action into my daily routine. I have even been looking for sneaky pete ways to get the kids to do "change their physical stance" so we can get over the hump of doing homework and other things they don't want to do.
Poor Abby had two whole pages of math homework one night last week. She was slumped over at the table crying about how much work she had to do. "I don't WA-A-A-A-NT to do i-i-i-i-t." After a few failed attempts to get her on track I asked her to take a deep breath and change the way she was sitting. She looked at me like I was crazy and just dropped her head to the other side. Wyatt was sitting beside me and I quietly asked him to give Abby a hug. He laid down on the table and whimpered "I don't WA-A-A-A-NT to. I'm so ti-i-i-i-red." I told Abby that Wy said he didn't want to give her a hug because he was tired. She thought this was very funny. Then I held him upside down and carried him over to Abby for a kooky little hug. She was in a much better mood and decided to do 1 page of math, do a chore and then come back for the other page of math. Thinking outside the box on my part saved us all a lot of stress and arguing.
We have also begun to add in start behavior tactics from the 1-2-3 Magic book and it is helping to settle both the adults and the kids down. One of the tactics I am working on is consequences. If the kids start whining or hard core complaining about a task I have assigned them I simply say (w/o emotion) "OK, you don't have to do it. I will do it, but if I do it, you will not get to play Monopoly with us tonight." That changes their attitude real fast. Of course, I have to follow through and play Monopoly later, but at least the assigned task got done. AND it got done without whining and crying and the general hysteria that has been typical of our lives for the last so many months. (Believe it or not, I counted an actor the other day - and it worked. I have no idea what I would have done had I needed to count him to 3, but I took a stand after numerous requests to get a daily task started. When he began joking around with me - thus delaying the task again- I said "That's one." He asked "What does that mean?" I looked at him and said "Don't make me count you to 3." He picked up his guitar and went to do the warm up I had been nagging him about. It worked!)
Ok - I have a lot of things to get done today. Peace, love and blessings to you all.
Love,
The Gang at Owenland Park.
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